Um we talked again, this is about funds and funding sources. Tax credit is a donation uh tax credit direct dollar fordoll uh in the state of Arizona. when you donate a tax credit, you get a a a tax rebate on your taxes. It's intended for those dollars to be spent within two years. Um, you shouldn't be collecting dollars there. Gifts and donations come about when someone wants to donate directly to the district and it's as indicated by the donor of what how we spend those dollars. And student activities are meant and intended to be um spent on the students that raise the dollars. So, we do pay attention to that. We have a monthly report that comes to the governing board. At the end of the day, it'll look exactly the same as that budget sheet, but the annual financial report again is located on our website.
Wow. And Coach Hall does in fact run the show. Yes. Hey, Highland, way to show up. Way to do the job every year, uh, when it comes to track and field. You guys are a main stay up here at this podium. So, thank you for that. Keep working hard. Uh, raise your hand if you're a senior. Congratulations on graduating here. Take your time when you're getting that diploma. Don't run. It ends on Thursday, so soak it all in. Congratulations, Highland High. Please shake hands and we'll take a pick. Did I miss anyone? Nice work. Nice work. Thank you. Gentlemen, do me a favor. Up front, take a knee. Oh, ladies, we'll kind of fill in. Scoot over to your left. There you go. Just fill in. There we go. Like that. Should have been a coach. Okay. One, two, three. You're good. Yay. Congratulations, Highland.
At the conclusion of the recessional, guests should exit the facility using the doors located on the north end of the building. All graduates must be met outside of the building. Teachers, we are ready to begin the recessional. Graduates, please rise. [Applause] Graduates, please move your tassel from right to left, signifying a high school [Applause] graduate. Parents and guests, I present to you the graduates of the class of 2025. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Yeah. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Hallelujah. [Music] I love you. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. All [Music] right. Come on. I'll be
5.12 approval of frontline education software subscriptions. 5.13 the authorization renewal of contract for content filtering and monitoring. 5.14 is the text approval for an anchor text. 5.15 is our CNI software renewal. And then finally 5.16 is the approval of uh this comprehensive consent agenda. All right.
This comes before all of that. Students need this strong foundation in early literacy to be able to understand, okay, I see this letter. This letter goes with this sound. These sounds together make a bigger sound called a word. And that's we need to ensure that our K2 students have a strong solid foundation with early literacy because that then translates into comprehension. So, in the beginning years, it becomes you are, let's see if I can get it correctly. I always flip-flop it. You are learning you're learning to read K2 and then third grade you're reading to learn. I always flip it. Um, and that's what tends, right? So, it's like we're teaching students how to read and then it clicks and this beautiful thing starts to happen and they start making sense of the information, right? And then now it flips over and now we're actually now registering trying to teach students to comprehend what they're reading.
Um, and they were all so so kind and talked to her in Spanish. And as you know, I love our dual language program. So, uh, seeing it kind of just like come to fruition was the most amazing thing as a parent, of course, but then also being like on the board like the dual language program is awesome and it was really neat that uh she was so supportive by by all the Spanish speaking admin and some teachers. So, that was amazing. So, thanks to the district for that. Oh. Oh, wait. And and you'll get to see her next month. So, when I'm crying and taking video, I will have my phone out for that one time. Just so you all know. Uh, and then I'll just go last. Um, I got to participate in the, uh, Three Oak Science Fair along with, uh, Mrs. Salt.
You know, I think it probably should change going forward. Yeah. And I'd be curious like when they're presenting when they're bidding on something, they're not bidding giving us different package options. It's not 80% organic, 20% junk, you know, and I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, right, I get it. Um, processed food, whatever, process processed foods. Um, they're not giving us that option. They're just they're just quoting us based on how many kids that were they're quoting us on that and the the the guidelines that are put out by uh um the the government as to what uh needs to be served uh in in school lunches because there are serving requirements for uh the amount of fresh uh fruits and veggies and and uh what type of milk needs to be served. Uh there's all sorts of requirements that go into the nutritional aspect of that.
Is it by the 10th grade if you're not at a certain level, you're recommended? Is it mandatory? What happens when you're 11th grade and you probably it doesn't look hopeful to you? What does credit recovery mean? So, it it means just that that I failed a course um either first semester or second semester and we offer that course to you um in summer school so that you can recover that credit that you missed out on. Oh, so it's not a graduation credit. I That's what I thought. It is part of your graduation. it is part of your gradu graduation credit, but you're going to recover it in summer school because um you failed that course in um first semester or second semester. So, we're giving you an opportunity to get that credit on your transcript and get it from summer school. Okay. So, I only only if I fail a class, correct?
Throw it high, throw it low, inside, outside. That one came in low. Now he finds himself behind. Evened up two to two and two. Gets under that one. Highfly ball center field. Able to range in easily and get that ball. That was Paul Selo out there in center field able to get under and catch that. Two outs. Alex Padulla up at bat. Takes a ball on that one. Da from another family of baseball players. That ball's high. Good eye on that one. That was like right at the top of the strike zone. Gets on a nice rip in the left field but right at the left fielder. I mean had to move over like three feet. That was a well hit ball. Just placed a couple of feet either way. That that would have gone in for a double or triple. Good catch, left fielder.
Um, and so at the beginning of this year, we had shared these are all the different areas of focus at the school. You can see there's a lot of them and that's that's actually not even everything. Um, but we've done a lot of work this year to try to to make it very cohesive. I also wanted to um um mention um so Angela here always um so um Angela here so the student support team um we had system in place last year um that wasn't in place at the beginning of this year um she acted very quickly to um put a temporary solution in place and now we're working on um putting something um more sustainable in place going forward. Um, but that's really to catch like when kids start to struggle, right? We don't want to wait till they fail. We want to put um supports in place before um you know before the kids feel like it's too late.
I've learned from my uncle who is a construction worker as well. He's he works on the roads and has a big impact. One of my favorite teachers that always helped me to improve my skills and improve my health as well is a teacher that I will never forget. So, I want to thank you, Coach Tyler, for everything that you've taught me. I will miss sports at PDSD. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play basketball this season. I did play football. I was there, but unfortunately, we weren't able to compete in any games, but I still went to every practice. I'm happy to have had that experience. I would like to say thank you to my parents for taking care of me, especially my mom. When she found out that I was deaf after I was born, she immediately learned ASL, and I'm so grateful for that.
Good morning everyone. Um so we're changing things up. We are going to call these two students um to the front. Um our first individual is Braden Teale. And the second one I would like to announce is Brody Smith. [Applause] So, it's not normal for us to have two students up here. And I just want to emphasize every one of these kids up here has shown tremendous improvement. And I'm sorry I've cried more today than I could when my other kids were promoting. Sorry. You knew this was gonna happen. You knew this was gonna happen. Here we go. Okay. Um, self-improvement is essential to all of us because it drives personal growth, helping individuals to become the best versions of themselves by continually seeking to improve individuals adapt better to challenges, build strong stronger relationships and achieve greater satisfaction in their lives. Ultimate ultimately improvement fosters a mindset of lifelong learning and growth, which is key to being successful in this everchanging world.
And this is what it looks like. It looks very similar to the budget sheets. There's that M. So you could see what we budgeted it to and then where did we actually spend the dollars and you can see that the majority of the dollars are spent in instruction um and support services. We have some of the um lowest administrative cost in our uh compared to our peer districts. we are below uh in admin costs across the board and also uh comparatively to the state. The fund balance reserve I'm not going to go into but this is a budget uh mechanism to ensure that we have a savings account so that we can take care of uh catastrophes when they happen. If they take away our federal funding we have the ability to maintain and uh not be in a catastrophic situation. That's what that fund balance reserve is for.
Thank you. Now, I didn't miss anybody, did I? No. Anybody win like backyard basketball you want me to recognize here? No, we good. Governing board members, that concludes our recognitions for this evening. Thank you guys. [Applause] Thanks, All right. Thank you very much. Want to offer one more congratulations to all of our students that were recognized tonight. Moving on to agenda item number four, superintendent report. Dr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. Um before I get started, I just want to uh recognize some of our Aspire program um attendees who are here tonight. Uh those in the Aspire program are interested in possibly becoming administrators one day. And so they're in a year-long program and they get to run through all the ins and outs of what it looks like to be an administrator with the hopes of one day that they're hired as a a dean, assistant principal or principal or a coordinator or a director one day.
Does the board have any questions for Mr. Pierce or anyone else? I have a question. So for the 5.2 for the personnel report, um, for the certified positions, how close are we? I know because you said it's a really, you know, huge list, how many after these, how many like open positions of certified? I think we have two. Two. Yeah. Which is again way ahead of the game. Having said that, we have had some recent internal movement um with our uh voluntary uh plan and I actually uh think you're going a couple more are going to pop open. You'll probably see a 101 all email from me by the end of this week. So that that number of two may go up to five. But I'm um I'm very excited because of uh our hard to fill positions. Um I think that um everybody in here who works at Routollo or supports Routollo knows that we have uh struggled to find Sykes and uh we are fully staffed with two psyches at Routollo for next year in May.
So that's the difference between SAVIS the reading and then this the early literacy phonics. Okay, did that answer your question? Okay, see I knew I had a slide for you coming. Um, so our next steps for teaching and learning is going to be to organize all the instructional materials. We will distribute that before the school starts of 2526. Materials will include a UFly foundation teacher manual. Hold yourselves. That's a total of $1,280. Um, and we will be creating a binder which will include all the principal resources needed for the lessons and games. You can always say anything. I just wanted to kind of explain why it is so um cost effective. Um, I was about to get there. Okay. No, you I'm sorry. I don't want to say No, you go ahead. It's a perfect time for me to go. Okay. There you go. Um, so this comes from the University of Florida UPLY was developed and so all of the resources um the the slide decks the they have um web-based applications for kids to slide in and make words.
Um, it's one of my favorite events of the year. These kids are so much, they're so intelligent. They're just so smart. And got to see the Odyssey of the Mind, uh, which we talked about last um, those kids couldn't love that anymore. They were like, every kid in this building needs to be an Odyssey of the mind. So, it was a plug for that program. So, um it was a great week. So, thank you. Uh next up, we have the superintendent's update. Dr. White. Hello. Once again, um first welcome officially welcome um Mrs. Bridget Sandlin to the board of education. Um also um to kind of tag on to the speech competition um comments. This past month, we had over 60 of our Kerry D26 students participate in this year's speech contest. It is amazing to watch our students perform and show bravery and talent during the competition.
That's that's part of that. But I understand what uh that the board is uh conveying and and like I said, I'd be happy to bring that feedback back uh and see if there's room for improvement there. Yeah, I'm curious. Thank you. What do what what do we plan on to do with any extra revenue since this is a nonrevenue maker for the district? So, what we've been using those revenues for is if we've had any equipment break uh within uh the kitchens, uh we've utilized those extra funds uh say for a dishwasher or say for a um a new oven, uh new warmers. Uh this past year, we purchased new warmers for the junior high when they revamped their their schedule uh to consolidate their lunch periods. So, uh we try to keep those funds within the lunch program uh particularly with any of the equipment needs we have.
And we do have What if I fail more than one class? I guess I'm trying to think if I'm in 11th grade, I should have what? Three out three credits of something. I don't know. Three credits of of English. Yes. So, I only have two. So, here I am thinking I'm going into senior year because I've been here four years. I think I'm a senior. What do we do? Is that a credit recovery circumstance? Is that a It is. And our guidance counselors do a wonderful job of auditing our students transcripts. Okay. um and contacting those families and saying, "Hey, your child needs this. Here's how we can um make up that credit for them." Okay. And and if I'm not mistaken, that guidance counselor would do both things. Yes. So the credit recovery, if you're behind each year, they're having the same guidance counselor should say, "Hey, you're on this track.
That was number three. Bars Barrens was able to get on that ball, get the out. So that's the end of the fourth inning. Ashley not able to do any damage and Hopkins and still up four to one as we head to the top of the fifth. Cardoso back out there on the mound waiting for waiting for his catcher to We may have a change of catchers out there. Warming it up. a new catcher. And it's hard for me to see who it is, but umpire's having his conversation with him like he does with the the catchers. making sure they're on the same page with everybody. Just waiting for the conversation. And there you go. The conversation's ended. We're going to start the fifth inning. Nelson at bat. First pitch is down low for a ball. Another ball down low. Pitch is outside. Three balls. No strikes.