Right. Correct. And then also the state testing. Correct. Okay. Just checking. just just seeing because I don't want to we talk about burnout and stuff and I don't I just wonder I'm thinking about I'm thinking about the psychology I'm trying to get into the head of like students um they're taking these tests this test is going to put them on a path. They really have to not slack on this or else a student is going to be put in down um an educational path until the next, you know, exam, right? On the on the No, because there's professional judgment. No, there's professional judgment that comes into play, right? We're not robotic. like the student takes the assessment, we look at the score and if the student let's say delve their score dropped because something was happening at home or maybe they were sick or there's many different reasons why a score could drop.
if that if that makes sense because that's kind of what that is. This language in the old policy gives us that um knowledge and I just wanted to make sure that that's what future boards and stuff would also have access to and be made aware of and and I agree with that and currently that's the the philosophy that we've been uh working by in the business office. when you get your bills reports, a lot of times some of those bills have already been paid. Um, and I think specifically when you guys approve the bills report and there's payroll on there, payroll has already been paid, right? U anything big that uh uh we know is going to be a hot topic always comes to the board for approval prior uh to us uh paying for it. Uh oftentimes if it's something new like security cameras, that will always come to the board for uh for board approval.
That's just like a typo. And that was 4152. And that was the policy number changed from 155 capital asset to or I'm sorry, probably 455. Um, typo on my part, but it changed from capital. It changed to 4152. And um, the new policy manual is still listing it as the old policy number. So I think I don't know it has it has been updated. Never possibly changed. Yeah, it's already been updated. So if you go online now to our policy for 152 and 41 172, those numbers have been updated to reflect the new numbers. So those are actually done. Okay. And then there was another one. This was in the the policy man. It was the table of contents though. It wasn't on the in the table of contents. Yeah, it was in the actual it was in the table of contents, not the um it did look proper on board docs, I believe, but it was the table of contents was reading um as the wrong policy number, the old policy number.
This is the first time we brought a team together to talk about their work and emphasize uh what they do, what they've been doing all year. And what I uh really is impressive, I think, is that you have a team that support and work together and collaborate really well together. And that kind of collaboration and work will present great results for us over in the future and even this year and it's like anything else I think they've built solid foundation in which to continue to work. uh you know they've talked about a lot of the data the very basic data that now they have that starting point of uh what to work from in terms of where we this year and where what what are the outcomes we're looking for and we can you'll see I I would that my uh career that you're going to see a growth in student performance if we continue this kind of work and continue having a team that works like this together.
Just want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address board cards that must be completed and submitted to our board secretary, Miss Huades. If you wish to speak on an agenda item, you can find those cards right over there. Um there are two cards. Blue cards are kind of general. White cards are for a specific agenda item. Um and they those white cards, if you submit one, come up at the time of the agenda item and not during the regular call to the public. Um, and due to open meeting law, like I just kind of discussed in our study uh session, board members are not allowed to address items um that are not on the agenda. With that, I'll move on to 2A, approval of the agenda. I would like to make an amendment to the agenda. Go ahead.
um strategies for bringing in families, um attendance strategies, um summer school, intercession, a variety of programs to support um students academically. I wanted to make sure it was clear uh as we we do these the allocation of these funds that there are very stringent supplanting rules. So all of these funds must be used to supplement the program at each of the schools that do receive title one funds. We cannot supplant existing FTE or existing supports using title. It must be in addition to what we've already allocated. Thank you. Uh so the um the reason that this uh fund 476 is highlighted is because it is new. It's a brand new award and we are um fully encumbered on that and very happy to receive that. Uh additional school safety program supports here in Gilbert Public Schools. That is a three-year grant. We expect to receive about $313,000 annually uh for the next two years after this one.
Um, and Simone, I'll go ahead and take it. You can take it away. Perfect. Thank you. Um, good evening everyone. Can you all hear me? Okay. All right. Perfect. It's great to meet many of you, see many of you. Um, and I'm thrilled to be here this evening with all of you. My name is Simone Carpenter. I'm a director with District Management Group. Um, and in my work at DM Group, I've worked with about a hundred school districts in over 20 states, helping districts think through how do we align our strategy to achieve results for students, and do that in a way that thinks about what's best for students, what's best for our staff, and what's best for our budget. Um, and I've had just the pleasure of working with Tom, the leadership team, and the DCC over the last few months. um and really digging into BPS 101's strategic plan and thinking about how do we create a coherent path forward that creates a unified vision for where we're going?
It is not going to be a oh okay this one score that explains who you are and that is your trajectory in education. No, as a teacher, our teachers look at that and they will be able to differentiate still based off of that. Can the teachers see like what questions that the students got wrong? No, because you're we don't have access to all the explicit because then that would take away from the diagnostic part. But you but you will see the standards that the student show that they were struggling. The other thing if when they engage with the individualized pathway, if let's say they didn't have a good day testing, if they engage with that pathway and they're mastering those the the the lessons, the program continues to adapt and adjust when that student is on that program. So yes, those first few days or um times that they're interacting with their individualized pathway, it may be at a lower level, but if they start to show mastery of those, it's going to move them up to those other levels.
Um I I think uh the press version uh suffices and I do agree with Dr. Thomas in that um this this can be very restrictive and it does limit uh our ability to make sure bills are paid on time. Um I'll give you an example. Those those periods of times where uh throughout the year we have long stretches in between board meetings. um often times those periods of time we do uh send out a rather large amount of payments uh because we don't want to incur that hardship and we don't want uh to be late on on our payments. So I'm thinking of like the period between uh the November board meeting uh the December board meetings are moved up and the the January board meeting which can be very late. Um, a lot of times those payments that you guys see come the end of the month, we've already issued those uh because a they're not controversial, b they're for things that the board has already approved and we're following through on those contracts.
Okay, we can double check that. And then there's another one on here um Mrs. Potter that it is um for col 10, the fiscal and business management. And um your notes that you have are the same as the notes that I have. And I think there was just an error in that first paragraph that they didn't keep the language that is what was recommended and by the administration is what was approved by the board and I think it just that was just an error. So I already have a note on here to fix that and replace that first paragraph with the old paragraph that we had agreed to. Okay. So Okay. Thank you. Do you know if that then if it's already going to just be fixed because it's it would do you know if that has to come then for approval? I think that needs to come for approval because it was like um published inappropriately or published in error and so I think we should go ahead and put that on the list.
So really I'm 100% believer in that. One of the most impressive things about their work this year that I think has played paid huge dividends is the learning walk. So when you have they're out and about the school a lot and they're out working together and and talking about what they're seeing. So they're they see different things. They get to talk about what the value of what they saw was. And then the other great thing about that is they're building relationships. They're building relationships with teachers. teachers building trust and building collaboration with teachers that they feel comfortable talking to their uh supervisors in a way for we want to learn from them and that they bring feedback to us that makes us better as a teacher and I think that's the important role that administrators play and so it's their work is to support and help teachers become the best they can be.
Um, I would like to move um number eight, which is um the approval of the director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Um, and put it right before student outcome focused governance. Oh, right before you mean right before, sorry, right after three. Right before four. All right. So, we have a motion for Miss Ays. I'll second that motion. All in favor of approving the agenda with moving 8A to right after 3B. I I I Okay, that passes. Moving on to governing board reports. I'll start with Miss Marquez. All right, almost done. Just a few more days of school here. Um, I'm excited for the eighth grade promotions coming up that I get to participate coming up soon. um was really exciting to go to the um awards ceremony for the district and being able to shake a lot of hands and just it was really I I hadn't ever been to one of those and so I've been to the volunteer lunchons but I'd never been to any of the staff events so that was awesome to be a part of.
And then finally, other district funds. We have uh changed our fingerprint process over the last couple of years. We now are requiring that all employees, regardless of whether they're certified and in the classroom, to have what we call an IVP card, meaning that in the event that there is an issue, it gets reported to the Department of Ed and we hear back if there's any kind of a um any sort of a a legal charge or whatever the case may be, then we're immediately notified of it. Uh so because of that in the past we had actually funded the fingerprint first for all employees and then through payroll they paid us back. Um now we are requiring that every single employee prior to starting must have the IVP card so they go out and actually get it on their own. That leaves us with a $22,000 balance in this account from prior years.
Um the strategic plan provides a unified vision for where we're going, but how do we get there and how do we measure success? Um, and you all I know many of you met John back in January um for the board retreat and I had the pleasure of working with Katie and Kristen this afternoon kind of catching them up on what they missed with the Chilean mining rescue uh case study and the work that you all did around school governance coherence. Um, and so we're excited to kind of bring this all together today to talk about what is a short set of measurable goals that you all as board members can start monitoring progress of success and failure of the strategic plan and the direction the district is going. So, I have some slides I'm going to share with you, but um, and I know this is a formal board meeting, but I'm a pretty informal person.
Um the other piece that I would say that I like about I Ready is right now we have this huge focus on percentile, whether I'm above percentile or below percentile because each student has their own individualized growth path. Now we talk about growth. So all students feel success no matter if I'm at the 20th percentile or the 30th percentile. I am now looking at am I on my growth target or my trajectory versus I'm below this this percentile or this mark. So, um I think as far as like our students and think about their own like responsibility and ownership of their learning, it allows you also to have conversations with the students about their growth path and what they can do and why they're in small group instruction and why they're doing this to help their growth, not to be past fail, which which kind of we talk about now, not without saying past fail, but that 40th percentile thing is a huge thing, especially when we look at our students who are serviced with IEPs and other things.
Uh, and and c we want to make sure that uh uh we're making our our payments on time. So, um, I take the meaning of the the press version to continue to do that to be upfront with the board, making sure the board is aware of all those those big ticket items. We would never uh pay for something huge without board approval, especially if it's new. Uh but uh removing that language does give my department flexibility in the event there is something that comes up uh that we need to make sure that we issue payment for. Uh and if we did have something like that, of course, we would notify the board in one of the the weekly updates, which I think we've done before. So, I'm going to um follow up with what Dr. Thomas and Mr. Shephard said, "As we move, let's just say, further and further into the wild, wild wild west of education again with the elimination of the DOE and who knows what else that's going to mean for funding, coupled with the the transportation center that we're building.
But just so you know of the the changes that was one of them and it's I just wanted to confirm that our notes match so we'll make that change. And I just wanted to address one thing on 350. I wanted the board to to note Mrs. Potter is correct. We not we me I guess the superintendent brings forth recommendations regarding compensation. The language that was added only deals with benefits and leaves of absence. We follow those procedures because we don't um negotiate a separate um benefits package or things of that nature for solely administrators that follows the teacher one. That would not change the practice of still myself having to bring forward recommendation for any administrative compensation changes. that would still be um required to be approved by the board. So that would not take that away from the board. It just articulates that that's how we do benefits and leaves of absence would um follow along by the teacher compensation would not.
It really does start with professionals who know what we're where we're trying to go and what we want teachers to be able to do and that's the work they do and that no one has done this year I've ever worked in terms of and I don't and I truly say that from a place that has worked with administrators my whole life. So thank you for your support. Yeah. Thank you for giving us the space to to do what we need to do. I'm going to add a little bit to that. I know we've taken away from your families from you being here and your in your life and I'm actually very impressed that Mr. Jackson the principal is sitting behind you or sitting alongside of you uh speaking up for you. Mr. Lloyd, the superintendent always keeps us surprised of all these things, but I would rather hear from you guys to be honest with you.
Um and interested well I'm glad that we did the budget 101. I'm excited to learn more about that cuz there's just realizing how little I knew about uh education budgets and funding. Um that's that's it. Oh, there's a summer school board conference coming up in June that I'll be attending and learning more about school finance and budgeting and um hopefully get some good tips and stuff to bring back to the district. That's it. I wish everybody a happy summer and hopefully it won't be too uh tumultuous.
And so we will be distributing the money appropriately depending upon what the guidance is from our auditors and we'll report that back to all of you. Um finally the internal service funds. Uh I'm including the employee benefit trust in that. Uh the internal services the print shop dual credit um and other areas. Um, I just wanted to point out that the year-to- date expended encumbered, that $760,000 does include some substantive reorganization upgrades to the print shop, as well as new print equipment, new print engines in the print shop, all of which were paid for by this fund, saving unrestricted capital from these expenditures. And finally, the employee benefit trust. uh you do have on the agenda under consent the renewal of the stop-loss. I wanted to share that we have updated the year-to- date expended encumbered as well as our expected revenues and that we expect that even with um the significant claim experience that we've seen in the current year we should be very close to a 21.1 million balance at year end uh reflective of June 30, 2025.