I wish I'd known that six months ago because I would have applied for it. Uh but we're going to do that next year. We will have snacks. I took it to the principles and they unanimously Oh, yeah. said yes because our kids are hungry in the afternoons, you know, and and as long as we do it just before school's out, you know, or 20 minutes before school's out, whatever. So, it gets served in the classroom just like our breakfasts do. And uh and that will bring back uh that will bring back between 200 and $300,000 in our food service program. So, um uh so it's kind of bad news right now. It's not horrible news. Um uh and we can we can we can afford to cover it's not you know it's not exactly what we want but we'll take care of it. I'll have the details for the for those things when we do budget next month.
Lots of updates of things that have happened in the last two weeks. Thank you. You're welcome. Trying to keep up with the changes in the government really are. Yeah. It's not as grim as it looked. It looked pretty grim for a couple of weeks, but it's not as grim. So, thank you for a long opportunity. Okay. Thank you. Item 4.2, board member updates. I was pushing to get us into schools and guess who failed. No, you're not alone. You're not alone. I actually went to Did you? And I did because I get the life academy, the the the preschool and and the childcare. All three of them. Get all three of them done. So, what'd you learn? And other than life academy, none of them were testing. So, it wasn't easy. No, that's I I looked at that and I said, you know, that's just an imposition.
Yeah. you know, that was that was not fair to anybody to have somebody come in. Well, I I planned it right because the Life Academy kids were done with their testing, but um so it it turned out fine, but it was it's always fun to go through the watch the little kids and whatever. And thank you. But I was telling Dr. Stuart earlier that one of the young men um eighth grader at Life Academy um we had asked how how he felt he did because it was the math portion. He said it was so hard. It was so hard. And I guess he's pretty strong in math. And the funny part is that um the night before at dinner my granddaughter who's in eighth grade at a charter school was saying the same thing that it was really hard. So I don't know what that means.
I haven't cross my fingers. She's a usually a pretty good tester. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, that was Yeah. Now my grandson fifth grade he said piece of cake. And my other one was seventh grade. He said piece of cake. But the eighth grade one they said was horrible. Horrible. Horrible. So, you know, just we'll see. Just giving you that heads up, Belinda. Thanks. Um, thank you for doing that. I do encourage myself and everybody else to at least get into one of the schools. I think we kind of all chose a school to go to. So, um I'm I will make a very very strong effort to do that. Um next week, Barb and I go to Flagstaff. Flag staff for a meeting and we'll have a report when we get home. Awesome. Uh consent agenda. I need a motion to approve a consent agenda.
I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I second it. All those in favor? I Melinda Subraki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb Thiki. I Judy Reed. Old business. 6.1 Updated certified specialist salary schedule for school year 2526. Uh, Madame President and board members last month when we talked about uh the MIOI coach and uh and you approved it as part of the plan for next year. Um, I quoted for you a salary that really was from the instructional coach line. Uh, but as Jen and I talked about it later, I realized that we we need somebody in this position who has not only been a teacher, a a quality teacher, you know, a good teacher, but probably somebody who's been an administrator. Uh, because this person's going to be coaching teachers, coaches, and principles. And, um, so um, column Q there is a salary column for that position.
um uh because we're looking for somebody who has some experience and who has certain qualifications and um and we frankly talked about what price are we likely to get somebody for. Um and uh so I'm proposing that we add that column to the specialist salary schedule. I looked at this and I, you know, if I was a principal and I was looking at this, I'd say this is unfair. And I still think it's unfair. You know, I could put that model of the instructional coach back down in the principal column, but I don't think they need Yeah. what uh $8,000 more about I I think that's right. Well, it's somebody who will have had experience won't be a step one principal. So, you know, we're looking at somebody who's The reason I did that is because when we bring principles when we hire a principal who's had experience, we give them up to 10 years experience.
So if we were to hire somebody who into this position who had a number of years experience as a principal um then and they get $82,500. No, they get $83250 because we if they come in with more than 10 years experience. So if we hire somebody with 15 years experience, we still only pay them on step 11. Okay? And that was the basis on which I did that. And I'm not and I'm not saying, you know, that you can't change this because of course you're the board and you can. But that's the that was the rationale that Karen that Jen and I had when we were talking about this was um uh with somebody with some years of experience. And in the job description, uh we put in there, I think we put in there at least five years experience. We're going to look at it in a minute because I have the job description in here for you.
Uh so, but I mean, play with it how you will, but that was our rationale. I tend to agree with Melinda on that one because the thing is is you're going to bring this person in their first year at 8325 and uh principal who's had 11 years experience. I mean granted this person's going to have had the experience but'll be starting at the same thing with 11 years. And I just don't see somebody coming in for the first year in our district making that kind of money when our principles aren't up at that that salary level either. Well, they're first year they would be first year with us. They would not necessarily be first year principal or administrator. They they would have you want someone that's going to have some background, right? But the thing is the principal coming in at 11 years has the same experience as the person we'd be bringing in as a at five years is experience of a coach.
The same same experience. Yeah. Yes and no. It just kind of depends on who applies. Yeah. Well, I mean, you could have somebody that's a retired superintendent that's been a administrator and decides, oh, you know, I want to get back into the schools, you know. So, I mean, I I don't think that that 83250 whatever that first year is is too high for someone that is 82 83 250 is principal. Then we're talking the model instruction coach model. Yeah. Then we're talking 90,750 bucks if they've had 11 years experience as a coach. But that's a possibility as a coach here. Sorry audience is not supposed to contribute. So if they come in and they have had to work in the district to become the instructional coach. No, not necessarily. And uh and it's not necessarily that it might be somebody who has had experience as maybe it would help would it help if we looked at that job description because it's on the agenda.
Yeah, I think might bring it up if you want. Please. Uh, did I not put those on there? Oh, yeah. 7.6. 7.6. 7.6. There we go. Model of instruction coach. There we go. Phew. Okay. So, bachelor's degree, master's preferred. Well, if they're if they have experience as a principal, they're going to have a master's, right? I would think that masters would be a minimum requirement. Yeah. And we could change that, too. um uh graduate work in curriculum content administration and other educational area. Um and I also think that they should have had administrative certificate. Okay. Because how are you going to tell principles how to do something if you've not been one? Yeah. I'm sorry, but I mean they won't I mean I think that if you're going to be telling a principal what to do, they need to have Yeah, you should have. And you know I would say a minimum of that.
So we need to work on this job description too. I think so because I I mean I having been a principal and having worked in district office too and stuff like that I know that that uh teachers and administrators respected me more because I had been in their position than if I had not. And uh when I was working in the high school district, you know, I I had been those things there too. So I just think that you're you're not asking enough for this kind of salary level. Okay. For the experience uh five years administrative experience, I would say minimum of five years administrative experience. Okay. I I would say five years classroom and five years administrative. So at least But you couldn't be administrator if you haven't been a classroom teacher. Yeah. But you don't that's a requirement. Yeah. But you don't have to be in there only for a year or two and then you can get into the administration.
I thought it was more than that. Okay. But I'm just saying I think that they should have been a principal. They should have had some of the background that people will admire and will respect their input because otherwise uh you're saying, "Yeah, this person doesn't really know what he's saying." And Right. Good points. Okay. Yeah, it's a valid point. Okay. Excellent. But even with this, I I still say that the compensation is too high. I think you're expecting a s former superintendent to come into this position. And I honestly look at this and I think you in order to pay them more there they've already been a superintendent and then they decided they didn't want the huge job of superintendentship and would do this job you know as kind of like and I hate to say in their retirement years but in their later years uh when they're tired of all the rigma roll that goes with the other administrative positions.
I don't know. I mean to get an retired superintendent to come back to this would be a miracle. Well, some consideration even for retired principles. I think yeah, retired principles might. Yes. If if this is too high, then please talk about what would be an acceptable um uh acceptable and and the reason I'm kind of pushing on on that is so that we can get this position posted and post a salary a salary range for folks. Can I ask a question? Absolutely. So, and and this is coming from ignorance. I mean, I have some idea, but but I'm hearing a chorus here of all saying the same thing. So in in fairness does uh uh a firstear participant in column Q are they going to be um for lack of a better word please forgive me are their pedigrees going to be greater than a first year participant in M okay so then clearly column you uh would merit being more than column M.
But the thing the thing is Fred, if you look at the number of hours hours, the number of hours for the the new model of coach is only 1560 where the principal is 1920. 400 hours. There's $400 more in there. So then if if they were to get equivalent monies, all things being equal, they would still be getting a bonus because of their lack of hours. Exact. Exactly. But kind lack of that 400 hours. Then just just as throwing it out there for consideration, and that brings up a a good question. Is that should they be only doing 1500 hours or should they be doing equal to what principles are doing? I mean depends on how you want to utilize that person but right and and that was part of our discussion as well. These 1560 hours you'll notice is the same as our instructional coaches.
So it's some time before teachers report in the summer and a little bit of time after teachers leave. Um uh and you know and it can be flexed a little bit. Uh but it's coaching. So you know they're not going to be coaching coaches when coaches are not here. they're not going to be coaching principles when principles are not here. Um although as you pointed out the principal's hours are, you know, are more days, uh kind of thing. And so it was it was pretty arbitrary on our part just to say, let's make it the same length as the um as the other coaches. Um well, are they But even even at that place, you know, the instructional coach um compensation is a little less than than half or a little bit more than half of what you wanted to do for the the um model.
And that's if you look at a teacher. No, that's teacher base right now is 40. If you require plus all those other things and and and you're right about 45 almost 40 almost 500 5 almost 49 5,2 Yeah. And and the and up until last year, the um uh the coaches did qualify for we had them qualifying for uh for uh classroom sight fund. When uh when the auditor general's office changed the coding and said that we could only use classroom sight fun because they defined what a teacher is. And so we can only code as teachers those people who are in the classroom 75% or more of the time. 75% of the time or more. Um that was also when we created um this sal we raised this salary and I'm not telling you that it's high enough because I'll never tell you that for any of our people.
But um that's why we added last year why we increased this column significantly was to try to compensate partly for that difference from not having classroom site fund because we knew that was a that was a big amount of money and uh it's a big it is a big so if you change column Q number of hours okay and give them the same compensation as column one. But they're coaching those. They're coaching. You mean do K for these? The MOI coach? No, no, no. Okay. I'm sorry. M. Oh, M. I'm sorry. Which principal column? The principal column, 1560 hours, which is more than the principles are getting. That's true. Then I think if you're going to five years of parenting start a little bit better. Yeah, which would make sense. Okay, you know the instructional coach has the instructional coaches and some principles to mentor a lot all of them.
But the thing is the principal has the whole school and every parent and every kid and every custodian and every roll of toilet paper and every roll. You know what I'm talking about? There's a there's a difference in responsibilities. Okay. If a principal is absent, it'd be a heck of a lot more important than or not important. That's not the word. Impactful. Impactful. Thank you, Fred. Than than if the structural coach is okay. Absent. So, you know, like um if they're go if you're going to if you want to give them more compensation, then put them in the column M, leave the number of hours like it is. because that's a justification for the instructional coaches. That's a good one. Yeah, I like that. Or leave the column and just copy the numbers. So, so we have the hours down here that match. Well, I was going to say the hours should be it doesn't necessarily have to be equal to the pres pr principles, but it should be more than the instructional coaches.
You think so? be well is is this person going to be assisting the principles as coaching then or coaching the principles? Yeah, during the school year. Yes, absolutely. During the school year during the school year. During a school year, but there's going to be periods of time when they um when there's no children when they can still be coaching. Okay. So, it's true. You know what I'm saying? Where it's uninterrupted coaching basically. So if you're increasing, you'd almost want to increase that their hours a little bit anyway. Yeah. I don't think it needs to be 1920. I don't think they need to work than the same number of hours that the principles work. No, but it should be. But it could be more than probably more than the instructional coaches. Um uh Madam President, can we ask Jen for a little input on this since she supervises these folks?
I'm glad and she was part of the discussion. Jen are listening. I mean, it's a good point because principles do work um coaches only work like two weeks or two days after students are out. Principles work weeks after students get out and then coaches begin I don't know like a week or so later than principal. So really with principal bringing scheduling, professional development planning, all of those things um before and after students, they probably should be longer than instructional coaches because they're going to be coaching principles who are planning on those things and maybe even helping now that I think about it, maybe even helping coach new principles or new assistant principles. So I do agree the hours. So boost it up to 1,600. Move column M over to column for prices for for salaries. Well, I just I was going to say more than I would think that an instructional coach though should also be helping with professional development and they should be involved highly in professional development that is presented through the year um through the offices of each school and so that the principles get the requirement of that kind of off their shoulders completely that this person would maybe do a lot of the professional development for the teachers, not just the principles.