I know the the site superintendent sitting out there from 6:00 am to 7 to kind of move any workers that show up and park in the wrong place, but you know, there's always going to be people that slip through the cracks. But, um, and then I know in the coming weeks we're going to have even a bigger surge of more construction people uh because we have more concrete workers coming in and some other things on top of the current staff. So, um, this last month of school is going to be a bit a bit hectic. It's going to be like a beehive up there. Um, but that's the price of progress as they say. But thanks to the staff and students at the high school for their flexibility. Doesn't come without disruption. Anything else on facilities? We'll go on to individual board member comments. Have anything like to say this evening?
So, we have a a really almost two and a half teachers uh to teach at the two schools and play to their strengths, you know, work work with their strengths to really build our program. The next year then we would look for having strings at both fifth and sixth grade and um and you know and expand the program. Uh part of that and part of the reason the high school is offering their band teacher is that we've not had a good continuous program to feed into the high school music program. And so we want to build that back up. First of all, it's it's good for kids, you know, and and nobody can argue that that it's good for kids, but it will be it will help the high school program and it will help kids continue in music uh to the high school level.
No word president's prerogative. Um, we had a couple pillar comments tonight again about the library and don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I just kind of want to echo what I said last month is that we agree on far more than we disagree. Um, we are big advocates for books currently. I'm more familiar with the high school library because we've been doing the project and my opinion is that's a very underutilized room and we need to improve it. Uh, one of the main reasons we didn't accept this policy is because we don't have the procedures or librarian to put it in place. So, we're tonight we approved a librarian. So, we're taking steps in the right direction. As far as I know, the board has never ever banned any books and I don't think we've ever had any input on what's in the library or whatever.
So, I'm pretty excited about that partnership. Carolyn, are they providing instruments for the children? We have lots of instruments that we Yeah, we have lots of instruments. Um strings and we do have strings. Yes. Because we had a pretty strong program. Um they didn't the music teachers were tasked with doing a good inventory of all the instruments in the district uh so that we could figure out you know if we needed to move anything around if we you know whatever it is we needed to do. So no child will be excluded because of lack of should not be known. Yeah we we want everybody who wants to participate. So um other questions about music. Okay, landscaping den landscaping. Cass, pull up some pictures. So, I went up. They completed this project today. So, I went this afternoon and took some pictures. So, when you enter the property, this is just to the north of the mailboxes.
Um, we kind of if there's a problem, it comes to us. If there's not, we don't hear about it. So, um, but we're not in the in the business of banning any books. So, I just kind of wanted to set this record straight a little bit on that. So, but I appreciate all the input. Again, it's there's a lot of passion on on the subject and um we don't necessarily disagree with you. So, it's I think we can all work together and and the whole the whole goal is for the children. So, that's that's where we're going to continue to concentrate. All right. Uh we do have an executive session this evening uh for the reason of placement of individual students in a special education program and other matters relating to individual students pursuant to 5CS120/2c10. So would anybody like to make a motion to adjurnn into executive session?
This is in front of house number two. Uh, and you can see all the rocks and the whatever. Now, uh, between these two houses, um, uh, they graded that, you really can't tell because it's pretty minimal, but they graded that, uh, space between so that it's low in the middle. Yeah. So that water will run off the houses and then it's graded so it will run toward the back of the property. We will uh, if you see, if you look by the window of that lefthand house, you see a post there. Uh, that's because we're going to put a fence because that's a wind tunnel. But we didn't want to put the fence in until we uh until the you know until the landscaping was done. And you will also know that we have notice that we have security doors on the front and we also have them on the back door.
I'll make I'll make the motion. Thank you. Second. I'll second it. Thank you, Kelly. Roll call, please. Let's see. Tyson search. Yes. Norin Friedrich. Yes. Adam Hemp. Yes. Andre Cory. Yes. Kelly Moyer. Yes. Craig Meyer. Yes. Lisa Schumacher. Yes. All right. We're to executive session at 7:55 All right, we are back in regular session. Time is 8:16 p.m. We have no further action items as a result of our executive session. Only thing left is a motion to adjurnn. Would you like to make that motion? I'll make a motion. Thank you, Andrea. A second. I'll second. Thank you, Kelly. All in favor? That concludes our meeting. 8:16 p.m. Thanks for joining us.
Oh, good. Um now, okay. Are the backs fenced? No. And I'll show you what the back looks like here in a minute. This is what the back looks like. So, this faces south. It faces uh the non-existent part of Kayed Marcato. Um and uh so you notice the big boulders uh and the various uh the tall cactus and then there are some short one. These are all none of these are living plants. I'm particularly impressed with on the right hand the okato um uh because it certainly looks like the ones in my yard right now. We have not had enough rain for my okatillos to have leaves. But my okatillos have been blooming regardless. And if you uh Oh, I think it cut off. Uh at the top of one of those um is actually a a bird. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. As part of the as part of the plant, right?
Oh, there you go. See him up there? Yeah. Um so, yeah, this was the next picture. So, you can see some pretty good sized boulders that they brought in for us. Um and um and it looks really nice. It's not fancy, and there's not a lot. Actually, there are not nearly as many of the cactuses I had put in the design, but I think that's because they're very expensive. Yeah. So, it looks really nice. And then this is looking down the east side of house number one. Um, so if you you can see my car down there. So, if you were, you know, if you're driving in, um, uh, on the left, you can see down that embankment where they've put rip wrap at the bottom, they have put what's called castle stone, uh, to hold, you know, to hold things. And it looks really nice.
the big boulders. Um, and you can't see all of the cactus that are along there. Um, but it all looks very nice and it was completed today. So, when is it moving? Well, I'm not sure. We're going to we're going to need to do a a a ribbon cutting, but here's the other part of this. So all along uh the um Bullhead City area, Bullhead Mojave Valley uh uh board of realtors uh had told us that they would support us uh in in the landscape proc progress process. Um they applied for a grant from the state uh realtors association and were denied. Uh but they don't give up. I don't know if you know Karen Summit or not or Dana Walters uh but they don't give up. So they have designed a fundraiser for us uh to uh to pay completely for this f this landscaping and our monument our monument sign which we don't have yet.
Um and it will be uh to purchase a stone one of those sandstone the flat sandstones. Um and uh have your logo or your name or whatever on it. Uh we met down at Karen's office yesterday because she had the stone samples. I thought that she was talking about the biggest one being about maybe 18 inches by 12 inches. No, that's the smallest one. And then the next one is about 24 to 28 in by 14 or 16 inches. And the big one is probably almost 3 feet by 24 26 in. They're huge. Um, but the idea is to go out to the community and uh uh ask folks to donate and get their name or their logo on a st on one of those stones. Uh, and then um, Cass, if you'll go back to the first picture, please. Yeah. So, oh, well, this doesn't really show, but um uh we originally thought we would either put them right in front of the monument, you know, that says Den Pro Den Project, uh but they're so big they would cover up our sign.
Um so, to the right of this picture is a drainage a drainage uh area and then to the right of that are are the mailboxes. And we've put stones along the back because we had people coming onto the property driving through there. And so our our our uh facilities people have built just so a rock thing. It's not a wall. It's just this rock thing. Um we could stand those uh those stones up on the property side of that those rocks uh so that when anybody comes in, they can see who helps support our project. Um that's not a final decision. It's just kind of an idea at this point. Um but um we're looking at uh kind of an exciting project to be getting uh off in in the next week or so and getting out there and uh finding some people and some businesses to support us.
So I think that's pretty exciting and and I'm appreciative of the Realtors Association for supporting us. Questions about that? Okay. Uh this the PowerPoint if you would please. Okay. So, one of the things that's part of um our IE contract is twice a year uh culture survey. Uh we have a bunch of results. I'm going to share just part of it with you. Um so, this um Jen and I met with Heidi um two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I think on this. So, I just want you to know that this is completely blind survey uh anonymous. 19 questions. You can see the dates. Um there were um questions about about the three pillars of school culture and then additional sections on leadership, innovation and or innovativeness and teacher satisfaction. Next one please. So uh there were 130 invitations to teachers. So that kind of answers your question about how many classroom teachers 130.
Um 122 responded. That's 94%. Those of us who Yeah. Isn't that great? Those of us who've done any research are really excited if we get 50% response to a survey. Uh so to get 94% is amazing. Yeah. Um and we had 94 in the fall as well. Um and um of course and they had to answer at least 10 questions to be counted. So there may have been more people who responded but maybe didn't answer all 19 questions. I don't know. Um administrators are not uh included. And uh and then they they kind of they did their own little research. average teaching experience among our respondents was 13 years. Now, that doesn't mean they've been with us 13 years, but they've taught for 13 years. Um, and the average years of experience in our district is five. Um, so cast the next one. So, I have two two data points for you.
Um, because I thought these were particularly interesting. Um, so this question had to do with uh change in practice. How much has what you've been learning uh in the model of instruction has actually changed the practice in your classroom, changed what you do or how you do it. And um so you can see the blue was the response in the fall and the green was the response um in March uh February March. Um, uh, I'm pretty excited that we're not quite at the end of year two and we have, uh, we have 64% of our folks, uh, say saying that they've changed their practice a lot or a great deal. Um, and then if you add the 29% that's, uh, moderate, uh, that's pretty significant change of practice. And then the other one I wanted to share with you is the response to uh the impact on student achievement.
So 75% of our respondents say uh that it's true uh or completely true that participation in their PLC so that means their professional learning communities that means the teamwork that the teachers are doing in preparation of instruction uh that it's made a difference in uh in student achievement. Um, and I think it's pretty significant that 75% of our teachers say that that really honing in on that uh professional learning community uh is is changing student achievement. Could I ask to go back to the previous slide, please? Sure. So, I'm kind of looking at this and it and it looks like um there's there's more teer teacher satisfaction and enthusiasm than there is uh uh not so much, if that makes sense. It does. So, that's wonderful to see that the majority of our teachers are in favor of this. Well, and and I'm not I would like to say that that they're saying they're in favor of it.
Okay. Um but what they're saying is their practice, what they are doing in their classrooms has changed. Um I would like to think that means that they're in favor. Um but what it really means is they're changing their practices to do a better job of teaching kids. And that's really what we're after. So their their experience as educators, they must see the value of the IE program, right? That's how I would interpret it. Yes, that's how I would interpret. That's wonderful. And and as I say, at the end of year two, to have this high a percentage, um uh I I was pleasantly surprised to have it this high. 64% is pretty significant for two years into a significant change uh in behaviors. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Cass. Any other questions about that little survey or those pieces? I have the complete report. I didn't want to bore you with the complete report, but you're certainly welcome to see it anytime you would like.
Okay. Next thing is um we did the panorama survey uh that Jen mentioned because we do it as part of the title one. And so students get the survey. It's opt in. So, um, we don't get the student response we used to get, uh, when it was we give the survey unless the parent opted out for their child. Uh, now it's opt in. And so, we don't get as high a percentage of students participating. Um, we have the teacher survey, we have the staff survey, and we have the parent survey, which just closed today. Um, and that's why we don't have all the data for you. Uh but the uh but one of the things that I did was read through the comments and look at the data on the teacher survey and you'll get all of this next month. Uh but one of the things that I noted in the uh in the teacher uh comments um people are entitled to their opinions.
That's fine and we want their opinions. Um but some of their opinions were based on some false information and so I wanted the opportunity to share with you the the correct information. Um, and I was a little surprised myself because I hadn't put this information together before. Uh, so Cass, if you would put up my payroll history, uh, table. So, what I did was I went back through uh, since I was here. By the way, I got an email today from or a text today uh, from a neighborhood person who was congratulating me on having been selected as superintendent six years ago tonight. Oh, hello. Congratulations. Happy anniversary. Congratulations. I didn't even know I didn't even remember the date, but I thought, well, it's kind of uh it's kind of uh ironic that it's tonight, right? The same day. Um so that's why it starts in 201920, which was when I started.
Um and of course that was the year I inherited a budget, which is fine because you know we I do the budget in I do the budget next month for you all and if I were to leave whoever comes in in July would inherit it. So that's just the way it works. Um, but the teacherbased salary step one uh was $37,000 that year. Um, but I also wanted to talk because one of one of the comments that was made several times in those uh survey uh comments was that classroom site fund money seems to be going down every year for for teachers. And um and so that's why there are the those next columns uh for this the $1,450 which is base uh is for base salary from classroom site fund is in red because in 2019 and the two following years that money was included as part of the base salary.