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Kaiser any further discussion all those in favor please say aye hi passes unanimously the discussion action 20 2021 original budget reserves okay okay so motion by I mean Robinson's second by dr. Kaiser any further questions or comments all those in favor please say aye all right passes unanimously we have the next item discussion action resolution 15 21-20 use of Redevelopment Agency passed through payments per ad 1290 yes I'm not going to get into the long history of redevelopment agencies but at the very short version is that redevelopment agencies were created with boundaries that were intended to remove lights and carve off property taxes to be used for that purpose when Governor Brown dissolved redevelopment agencies districts he those dollars as long as there was debt in the former RDX so for cheaper unified did you heard last board meeting or expecting those dollars to run through 20 37 38 in the 19 years if you pass this resolution however it allows the district to spend these dollars outside of any boundary designation and if you think about it the district serves a much larger geographic boundary you have in the city of Chico and so frankly it isn't our intent to not use these dollars wisely but it is intended to give ourselves the greatest possibly can which is allowed by law and as a reminder we use these dollars to ups that are RMA are routine strictly maintenance account and currently fund 42 which we use in twos or our security cameras for instance so what we don't want to do is have our party dollars locked into the geographic boundary and we can't do security improvements on that school because it's outside okay motion by dr.

Keiser any further discussion seeing none we will vote all those in favor please say aye aye okay that approved that is approved unanimously [Music]

feyo's contract director of special services mrs. Rousseau's contract which were agreed upon last year for the following school year I do want to make mention Katarina Waldron I was just notified today who's been a very effective middle school teacher for us certified in special ed science math resigned today to take a position in another school district so I did send out a posting for that position today this year she would have been teaching special ed in in our middle school I wish our the best Allyson Connor who's been an aide with us for a number of year years and she also filled in for the last couple of months as a part-time secretary in school number three has resigned to accept the position elsewhere teacher aide Angelus steak house has been with us a number of years is retiring julie busan ik who's been a cafeteria worker working with us for a number of years is also retired so i wish all of those people the their best as they move on to transfers jamie's figlio does who is a high school law teacher is being transferred back to the middle school where she had been teaching for a number of years in the past and barber vitally is being transferred from the middle school to the high school as an art teacher we are appointing three additional virtual summer school teachers because of the number of students who were recommended Yahaira Canales stephanie rodriguez and Liz Bautista who be doing ESL they're coming on they will be teaching summer school beginning on Monday Katherine Buccola who's a speech teacher will be doing speech with us this summer she's replacing Lubell Rivera who decided not to take the position the last resolution on page three are the staff members who we rescinded they're working this summer because of going virtual and as I had mentioned before we originally appointed everyone not knowing what this summer would look like but as a result of virtual there will be some areas where we're not offering programs such as phys ed and are and we're rescinding those the resolution for those people to work during the summer we are appointing two additional aides for the summer that'll be working with our special ed students because of enrollment Luisa Amaya and Wanda parent that's new to the agenda that was not on when you receive the agenda on Friday and just to mention also Stephanie Rodriguez who's working this summer was an addition a late addition to the and today due to class size at the bottom of page four we have a number of staff members and outside volunteers will be volunteering in girls soccer boys soccer and football all have been fingerprinted and they'll be working with us for the fall season has volunteer coaches that's at the bottom of page four so starting on page five and running through page just bear with me a second page 19 so 5 through 19 we are as we teach here appointing all of our staff our teacher aides our vice principals principals supervisors teacher aides bus aides for September and we are stating their salaries as per contract for September 2020 and that's what the information is from 5 through 19 if we jump over to page 23 I emailed you this a little bit earlier just approving the board self evaluation for the 2019 20 school year we're doing that officially well also approving the New Jersey Department of Education school self-assessment for determining grades under the Bill of Rights so that's something that each year the district does a self-assessment of how they've done with their HIV program now that data is already posted to our website on the right hand side in a little rectangle where I have my information and the Board of Education I also mailed you a copy early of what those results look like and as we do each year we do very very well on that I think all of our HIV coordinators our district coordinator ray and Rene up does a really great job in terms of addressing all of cases we're also agreeing for the 2020 21 school year as we do each year we bought into a Jewish family service for after-school program so hopefully we will have a live after-school program this September but again it depends upon what the governor's recommendations are what guidelines are mr.

román Jeana I do have one it's not a question from the public it's a statement it just says congratulations to the facade part team was successfully completing another school year so that's a comment from someone who was currently watching the stream of this movie before I asked for a motion to accept the agenda any questions okay motion to accept I'll make a motion to accept mr. Shelley yes may have a second please hey mr. broom second okay okay I'll take the motion to accept now mr. Brue yes mr. Capano yes would one abstain on maria kappa no school for nurse mrs. Fredo yes dr. Pantoliano mr. in court yeah mr. Shelley yes except for Kevin Shelley twice page three summer staff and page nine teacher salary as well as Jonathan Janu Chi page for supervisor salary okay thank you mr. Shelley teddy sorry had a mute yes and I obtained on franklamacchia okay I'm sorry could I could come back to me for a second I have to stand on page 14 Jessica foster teacher's aide salary otherwise yes page 14 page 14 Jessica force a teacher aide salary yes thank you okay mr.

those funds we utilize them for class size reduction a couple things I wanted to point out that this is a cash controlled fund so the second payment for 2020 has not yet been received the budget will increase through a budget revision by approximately two hundred and thirty thousand um next year however with a caveat that those Indian gaming budget of course could change if the allocation changes due to the loss of Revenue because of covet 19.

um I've still been reviewing the information and kind of I guess because I have a different experience of living through something different within our school district I still I'm not sure where I'm at on this I get for this year because we've ran into situations the covid not being in in school and and different um I for me I would be more inclined to look at doing um a resolution for the for the year so that our staff can can carry it over and part of that too is the conversation we also just had on what do we look like going forward and that this would be in an actual policy change again I understand current situation our staff did not get to use their time because of covid and not only did they not get to use their time they had to work harder and I and I get that um I'm just concerned for future and more so in the next two three years financially what school districts are going to look like and so that's um that's kind of where I'm at as I continue to to read through this to make sure that um it's something that we can sustain going forward that we're not caught with um a lot of a lot of money that needs to be paid out so um that like I said that's just where I'm at I would much rather at least for the moment see a resolution for the 1920 school year so we can take care of those staff members currently and then potentially revisit a permanent policy change for the future Mrs good I just wanted to clarify and maybe I misunderstood something that Mrs Reese said but you mentioned um do we have to approve this no it's just a second read if you approve the second read that is does amend the policy thank you I just wanted to clarify that thank you for clarifying that Mr Glover well I mean I don't know how everybody's feeling I can't I can't read but I I support it so um people are in sick time and and leave and we should pay them for that um a lot of our most dedicated workers will just forfeited anyway but it was nice to know that at the end of their career they can chalk up a couple extra days and and cash her in um so I'm in favor and you know if we need to come back and you know the economics change like 2008 2009 we can revisit it but I think it's fair and reasonable and I support um and I am kind of lumping these together just for my thoughts but I know we have to take each one separately and I will do that I guess too it goes back to the conversation of um and encouraging our staff to take a vacation take a real vacation take those days off and use your vacation because we do appreciate the balance of Life work school job family um and yes I know some people um you know I just want to make sure that when we're taking a vacation we're taking a vacation and it's getting um appropriately um deducted from paychecks because I know like our support staff they you know they're clocking in um in and out it's very clear when they're in in their job and when they're not in their job and when it comes to our um profession do we have professional staff I guess that was the word that we used but we just want to make sure that you know when an administrator is off the campus and taking a day it's taking a day and I think that's kind of where we had the conversation last time and just want to make sure that's happening so um we can if there's no other questions or concerns on 6.4 all those in favor aye those opposed nay nay motion carries 3-0 three two three two sorry three two and six point five I moved that the governing board approves the second read of amendment policy gcd professional staff vacation and holidays second any questions or concerns hey Madam president just one can you tell me about sick days for administrative staff they still earn them at a at a rate so we have to separate go ahead please yes Mr Glover in terms of our general leave here at the district at Higley we call it General levnet sick leave that was a language component that was changed prior to my arrival that is separate and our general leave is a crude per pay period where for our professional individuals in this policy gcd for our administrators those are actually earned not through each paycheck but at a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year July 1 and again at the beginning of the calendar year it's split in half half earned July 1 half earned January 1.

How do I know if the teachers are talking with two extra days on the calendar to see how the calendar changes in November for the elections and August 22? Well, it seems to have disconnected, but they are talking, they are moving the appointments, I mean, the teacher meetings are going to try to focus on COVID, how it will look tomorrow. There will be an announcement from the governor tomorrow, guidelines that we have to follow. They also want to be sure that the group they are going to talk to regarding the previous weeks always wants to let you know that there are always strong teachers and teachers who represent all aspects, but people who are working on how the operation will take place within that team. Probably 50 teachers have expressed their opinions for this part of that conversation. All those employees will be appreciated to see their ideas.

There is no presentation. There will continue with action items from the letter to the proposition, analysis, and the results of the Board of Education's operation. It is a motion that you agree with the discussion. Everything in general will be discussed. There will be some changes that the employee meetings this year will address. Everything that is in the proposition, say yes. Is the motion complete? The proposition of letter B. Ah, calendar review. The Board of Education approves the calendar for the year 2020-2021. Do you agree? Yes, no? Uh, the second one who supports it, Jon, so the calendar review. All those who are in favor. Say yes, someone who opposes it. Not everything is about emotion. Proposition C is correct. They are making the emotion of the teacher evaluation plan. The Board of Education approves the teacher evaluation plan. According to the mention of CONATE, Emi supports it.

Sam you didn't have in comments no would think we're working through it the state just like the GPA and honor roll and everything you heard before wavered a lot of things that we weren't expected to finish but we have some agreements to work through and some understandings emotions motor so care action items II job written I make a motion that the Board of Education accept the superintendent's contract and salary for 2020 2021 as recommended Joe Britain yeah Rachel sulesky Kate caneta yes Gladys Cooper yes Lauren daily just Joe DaSilva yes Katherine Hodgson no rich Ginelli yes Kathy Molinaro yes al Russo know Amy's Bellino yes okay so that's seven to four there okay so we move on to the next time Moshe was so Karen a Captain America make a motion that the Board of Education except the cabinet members contracts for 2021 2020 through 2021 as recommended all second okay second back a roll call please Joe Britain yes Rachel Solinsky yes Kate caneta yes Gladys Cooper yes Lauren daily Lauren daily thank you Joe DaSilva yes Katherine Hodgins yes Richard Ginelli yes Cathy Molinaro yes al Russo yes Ami's Polina yes that is unanimous okay so Kari action item I will make a motion that the Board of Education accept the exempt employee salaries including the cabinet members for 2020 - 2021 as recommended okay Amy any questions please Joe Britain yes we total esky yes Kate caneta yes Gladys Cooper yes Lauren daily Joe DaSilva all abstain Catherine Hunstanton yes rich Ginelli yes Cathy Molinaro yes al Russo yes Amy's Polly no yes that's ten yes one abstention ten years the moe motion so fast make a motion that the Board of Education to prove and set the budget for 2020 - 2021 in the amount of one hundred and thirty five million six hundred eighty six thousand dollars an increase of 0.92% in accordance with the schedule motion second any questions any discussion just a couple quick things I just want to thank Courtney for all of her help and working through the book I asked for a workshop and she did a great job presenting it the full board I really appreciate that and there were other separate emails between she and I and phone calls Thank You Courtney the other thing I just want to mention is that you know this is this doesn't include all of the abraded funding that we've been talking about a ten million that gets us really close as close as I've ever seen who are original ask we're just shy of our 146 with that ten million that we're not voting on this evening and also just one final question and then I promise you know I'll leave you alone [Laughter] specialist I understand that they're touching all K through five and they're working with the coaches so that students can through five the board are supported are their support student support specialist for each elementary school let me start this our intentionality is that it there would be we were looking at a face and I am somewhat reading some tea leaves then I'm a little worried about what might be happening in we may have to reallocate some funds so that we can do that earlier because the whole intent of the money rachel was to mitigate the loss and if the kids come back you know and they're not this learning you're not gonna mitigate in January so yes that's our intent and and we were going to delay some of it but I think we're gonna have to work with Courtney we're close to reallocating not buying some things so that if we do come back September that those kids have support so the answer that should be yes that's our intent thank you thank you for your question Mary and thank you for your comments that say mr.

Sauer just mentioned we we reached out to ed advanced as soon as we were made aware that the commissioner and the governor will be updating us with something more formal we now anticipate that there's going to be considerable flexibility for districts and so get given that anticipation we requested ed advance and they did an amazing job facilitating the initial workshops on this and then they they they stopped the meeting is waiting for something formal to come out from the governor's office so you might recall it was almost a month ago there was a Friday we were expecting something official coming out from the office we're still waiting for that for that information and now it appears it's going to be coming something was going to be shared with us momentarily and so the thought is the the school district that are part of the ED advance region they will be reconvened so we can revisit at advances has developed a template for all the districts to use and so you know some of the mitigation strategies that the various subcommittees and I have developed will be literally cutting and pasting and putting those strategies in that template but they but-but-but the big the big work is determining how we're going to reopen schools um and then all of the other strategies will follow and so we have a work cut out for us certainly moving forward but as Sal mentioned earlier we want to be we don't necessarily have to be lockstep with our neighboring districts but I do think we want to all be on the same page given that we have our power you know a lot of our staff in neighboring towns and then those staff of course will need to be available if they're gonna come to work here in Danbury so we're hoping we can help each other out in this work any questions before I move on some school update Cara and Kelley or Kevin okay yeah I can start so just just an update for the board you know with everything going on of course schools continues to move forward and so we have to we've appointed two people in charge of k5 summer school they've done an amazing job and as you might imagine academic focus has had to change considerably given that we're going online so Carol on top of you know literally changing everything that we've had to do k12 had to do it again for summer school and so we have a delivery in place and summer school regular summer school k5 will July 6 and that will that will go throughout this summer into July 30th for for grades 6 8 & 9 12 will also be from July 6 to July 30th the times will be Monday through Thursday from 8 from from 8 to 11 for the a.m.

Keyser second but Eileen Robinson any further questions or discussion all those in favor then please say aye okay that passes unanimously next up is just informational it's the first reading of a revised board policy that has to do with Student Wellness its board policy five zero three zero and as a first reading we will not address it but you are asked to please review this because we will vote on it at our next regular meeting I believe and however the next item is a discussion action that has to do with the board policy 6145 on extra curricular and co-curricular activities we are being asked to review and pass this tonight so anyone wish to discuss this item well just to clarify we know we are going to vote on this we are not going to vote on the student on this we're just going to vote on this extra okay motion by the Robinsons second by dr.

sorry everything in defiance a couple of things mr. román do you know thanks to mr. Capanna for the update of our meetings last week with buildings and grounds and the Finance Committee piggybacking on Finance we're working on closing the 1920 school year opening the 2021 school year and starting the prep for our 1920 audit some of the resolutions in the back of the agenda one for the open bid threshold that's been increased from 40,000 to 44,000 we have an unused cap capital reserve resolution that's capital money that was not used that we can roll over and use for future years and we also have a right to know resolution that mr. Dano produced two documents the chemical inventory and the chemical hygiene report that needs to go through the state and the county that's pretty much it on the finance side mr.

Roman Gino we can have a there isn't anything else we can have a motion to adjourn okay meet our next meeting is July 22nd correct we'll be streaming that meeting to the public and again if any parents are listening to the stream we will be getting information out to the parents as soon as we put a plan together for September we're gonna do that as quickly as possible once we get the guidance from the governor's office and the Department of Ed and the same thing will be true about regarding full sports so July 22nd thank you very much have a safe summer motion to close throw moved I'll second it okay Thank You mr. Capano Thank You teddy mr. Savastano yes

why don't you always say something like a little more positive for us I love it more bad news from the state I just want to put that disclaimer out there yes it's a good time because I'm paying attention okay so what happens now so this evening I presented to you our proposed budget and I ask you um to approve it it also as as well as call for a public hearing for July 15th which at which at that time we will present the same budget back to you and to the community and ask you to adopt it for the 2021 school year on the 16th of July the finance department will upload the 2021 adopted budget um two Ade and two Maricopa County the adopted budget will be posted on ade's website as well as the district's website for Community viewing President Taylor yes Mrs Reese Mr Holland yes ma'am with our lovely crystal ball that we don't have um can you kind of share your thoughts we have no idea truly what the financial impact of covid's going to be on our state that is correct they don't know it sounds like we keep pulling money from the same pot for different things because we're having to be reactionary and we're trying to cover this we're trying to cover that um anyone following it knows our unemployment's out the roof I I mean our state money's depleting quickly and it's going to be a while before we know what the true Financial impact with lack of sales tax lack of gaming things like that it's happened before but do you foresee us really having to change our budget mid-year the state has done that before they've come in in mid-year and said look we just don't you're not getting this funding um since we don't know the true economic state of our state funds uh I mean are we thinking about that are we kind of planning for that are we creating some contingency plans I know you are always very fiscally responsible with trying to plan ahead we plan ahead for our increases with our lease payments things like that I I can you I'm not meaning to put you on the spot and we don't have that magic crystal ball to know but the state has done that to us before they have come mid-year and said you've got to change your budget we just don't have this money so you guys aren't getting it so I'm just are we are we trying to plan ahead in case that happens I know we have money we set aside like you explain our carryovers we try and plan what is your gut feelings what are your thoughts on how do we prepare for something like that we don't know how long this is going to go on we don't know what else is going to come our way so that makes it very concerning I mean this is a great budget and my fingers are crossed and hopefully we can get through next year with this budget and maybe this will hit the following year eventually everyone will have to take a reduction somewhere and so can you just kind of your gut feeling your thoughts on this President kaler members of the board we did revise our budget because of the the covid-19 situation we had predicted that we would have um minimally a one percent increase in student enrollment we have reduced that back to a flat enrollment and we do know with Governor ducey's uh stabilization for Education Proclamation that the the most we would have to cut would be two percent I feel quite confident that we have a two percent savings and vacancy positions should we need to there may be a need to cut some some different areas but we have been fiscally responsible and we definitely can I mean it would not be a hit we would take it all in one year we would have to spread that over a couple years but we do have the the savings available to us with our carry forward to ensure that we could spread it out over a longer time period should we have to take a hit of 2 percent within the Higley Unified School District and so I'm confident that we've done everything we can to be fiscally responsible but it is something that weighs very heavily on my mind especially in the aspect of um not just the the cost for Staffing but the cost for actual covid-19 supplies and and everything we have to go from hand sanitizer to to masks to cleaning systems to extra Staffing for cleaning our schools and our district but that is something that we talk about on a regular basis that we're watching very carefully thank you Dr Thomason what um I wasn't able to catch all of ducey's was that his only executive order today that he stated was the two percent actually that was not one of his statements today this statements he said today on his executive order um went over things we had already prepared for Dr Foley and Marcel and myself have a plan for an aoi as we move forward and what uh he said in his detective uh statement was that we would go forward with an aoi for those students and those individuals that did not feel comfortable coming back to school with no reductions in in student payments in that way so usually an aoi student gets paid a lower rate because they're not a brick and mortar students but he would go ahead and made the proclamation that we would be paid our regular students ADM for those students that decide to stay home and have online or remote learning thank you for that I just every time we look at finances I want to thank our taxpayers because they do provide so much support and we went out for an override this year and it passed and I just want to say thank you once again because we couldn't do the things that we do without them um Mr Holland also thank you for putting this together thank your team for me because we haven't seen your team in a while so just please thank them I know this takes a lot of work and this is your main job so I just really appreciate you no problem yes please keep in mind that the funding that the state provides is for basic education with all the extra stuff that this District offers um that's where that override money does come in helpful helpful handy to help us provide those additional programs to our students thank you so much appreciate your time I have not made a motion yet for this I did not do that earlier so I'm going to do that now um I have to make the motion first but I move that the governing board accepts the proposed FY 2 2021 annual expenditure budget and approve uploading both the notice of public hearing and the budget summary hearing notice as required by Statute all those in any other questions or comments all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero thank you Mr Holland I had one thing I wanted to just add is that every year I do build in the contingency budget so on top of what Dr Thompson was talking about I do budget for uh have a contingency budget built in just in case so president Kaylor Williams is good we need another motion calling for a public hearing on the budget on July 15th okay I'm going to make a motion that we have a public hearing for the budget of the school year 20 21 20 20 20 20 21 school year on July 15th second all those in favor aye motion carries thank you Mr Holland can we have a joke next time though because I missed your joke today um I do have a joke for you um but I was kind of advised maybe I should stop doing them so I can tell you what no it's okay we can stop I had always done one I was used to getting a joke from you so it's okay we can stop we like candy though just remember that like what we do like candy though oh see I had candy for you too and I was told to put it away oh yes yes covid and no candy I totally respect that Mrs reach no I get it I get it I get it no thank you very much we appreciate your time tonight let me just give you my joke now okay so today at the bank an old lady came in and asked me to check her balance so I pushed her over an apple a day really can keep the doctor away but only if you aim it well [Laughter] thank you yes ma'am we could all use a few Giggles right now um okay we're moving on to 6.3 and I move that the governing board approves the award of water treatment services and maintenance RFP number 16-07-24 to Vantage at the proposal amount of 71 268 dollars for the first year president Kaylor yes we have a different RFP on our agenda form than we do on our yes recommendation tabula um do we know which one is accurate we have 160724 on our recommendation but on our written agenda we have 19-05-24 it's the 190524 so let me rephrase that scratch that motion I make a motion that the governing board approves the award of water treatment services and maintenance RFP number 19-05-24 second to Vantage at the proposal amount of seventy one thousand two hundred sixty eight dollars for the first year okay now second now you second um are we having any any presentations on this tonight or this is just for our viewing president Candler members of the board this is something that we regularly go through for the water treatment for our HVAC systems that we have for our schools that have the the chilling towers and they have the full School heating and air conditioning systems that we have on a regular basis so we can make sure that that water is at the proper alkaline levels and the proper scale level so we don't have to have more equipment breakdown for us as as time goes on thank you any questions or concerns for Dr Thomason all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero we're now going on to 6.4 and this is a second read I I make a motion that the governing board approves the second read of amendment of policy g d d which is support staff vacation and holidays second any questions or thoughts or concerns Mrs recent president kaler thank you Miss Martins we got the information on Friday that we had requested I just want to clarify um are we asking for this to be approved you made in just the second read or any comments okay no comments no questions I guess my question um my can we pull up the policy please Ryan my iPad and I guess this goes with both um 6.4 and 6.5 I don't want to get ahead of ourselves but we're not going to do any caps on these hours is that correct president Keeler members of the board good evening the Caps are the Doom pardon me the new individual numbers that are in Red so in this instance with policy gdd support staff vacation holidays the cap had previously been 15 days so it'll be 20 days and as we get to the next one I can clarify that too if you'd like but they are capped with new suggestions in terms of the changes does that help clarify yes thank you president Kaylor yes please Mrs Reese I also wanted to ask so is this going to the the 20 days will supersede the 15.

but and they also so they get General leave and then they have this so but the general leave is paid out at a different a very different rate yes and so our general leave policy is separate of this and it only paid out for individuals who've been with the district for a minimum of eight years they have to notify Us by X date um and for our individuals that are certified it's paid at the substitute rate and a percentage of the substitute rate and it um it's a sliding scale So based on the number of hours that you have within General leave it starts off with paying out a 25 rate and then it goes all the way up to 100 of the substitute scale which is currently 100 a day um if it meets those criteria and if they have that much time um so much different and then in terms of our classified individuals it's also paid out at a sliding scale but not at a substitute rate but at their hourly rate yeah so okay I'm not speaking against this I'm going to vote in favor of this for sure because same things that I say you've earned the days we should pay people for the days that they've earned and not not pay them if they don't use them so but I think there it's so sloppy and messy when you have these different days and different rates and I mean my inclination would be I would be sick more than I would use vacation so that I would put them to the side so it's it is a little messy I think there's an opportunity no other school districts probably do do this but there's an opportunity to maybe pay the more for the general leave and reduce a little for the vacation something that's more fair that promotes people to be at work take care of their health when they need to and take the vacation breaks that they need to but that's years away from doing that but it's just I'll slide it in there for us someday maybe if you you know when you have nothing better to do to work on that when Mrs Martin's is Bored thank you I look forward to that day thank you any other comments or questions president killer I guess the same thing applies I I have some concerns and I hear you Mr Glover but also our conversation at our previous meeting really need to work on the work-life balance and and I'm a big proponent of that if you have it schedule it take it enjoy it obviously this past year is different and I recognize that and that we do um we do have a payout I I just don't know about the the increase okay we're going to vote all those in favor uh those opposed motion carries three two okay we're gonna move on to 6.6 and I move that the governing board approves the sole source procurement from the vendors listed for the fiscal year 2020 to 2021. a second questions comments concerns all those in favor aye motion carries five zero 6.7 I make a motion that the governing board approves payment of 5720 for hcpa to the Arizona Dance Sport Inc from 2018 to 2019 fiscal year Dr Thomason do you have that information of why we're doing this president Kayla members of the board I'll refer to Dr or Mr Holland on the information on the the procurement foreign so Mr Zucker came to me um last week and there was a PO in place for for dance last school year at the end of the year um Mr Zucker had contacted Lisa bate and it mentioned that the box office did not utilize um I mean the company didn't utilize the box office that the PO could be closed however um had forgotten that the box office had been used and that the bill had come in but the bill got overlooked and so they recently called him a couple of weeks ago and said hey we've never gotten our payment I'm not sure why they didn't call months and months before now um and so that's when he came to me and said okay I have a bill here from last year that there was um some misunderstanding and so we now need to pay this vendor very good thank you I know things can get overlooked occasionally so we'll give Mr Zucker a pass just a quick question on that this indicates it's the 2018-19 physical year 1819 bill we have to pay in 1920.

They think it is necessary to do what needs to be done to start with good safety for everyone, for the students as well. The group on how things are going to start is the important thing that will be given. Apart from that, the agent that will be given to test the flexibility of the teacher training will be tested. Trying to see how to work in Cono on the things that need to be done in the schools. She wants to give them what is being worked on in the 19, that is, in this year 20, to see what the chaos that will be, the problems, the process, and also thank you for all the work that you, the board, are doing in helping us with this. One student representative is here. Are you asking any students? No, no, no, any representatives? The next item on the agency's agenda is a presentation.

They are a comment regarding that. The state is only working on it. Regarding the GPS, many things are going to happen. You will see how there will be an agreement. Everyone who is in favor, say yes. Oh, if anyone opposes it, everything is complete. John's proposition, Superintendent, regarding the Superintendent's contract with the salary for 2020-2021. An emotion. Katy Molano, she is doing the sort, a discussion, a question. Ah, they are calling the people on the board. She says, she says no, she says no, no. 7 cu, 7 cu. The proposition passes, and the second proposition and the first proposition passes. Proposition E makes the proposition for the contract of the cabinet members for the year 2020.

d7 thank you madam sure uh I want to echo what Rachel just said Courtney did an amazing job I can't believe this is her first year here hey the cabinet doctor cell you guys did an amazing job trying to piece this together as Rachel pointed out this doesn't include about 900 million dollars in braided funding that were being allowed to utilize basically one-time funding sources that are you know rolling over of grant money rolling over of surplus that we were able to save this year cares money it gets us to our 146 ask what to be clear this isn't our ask this is not the same 146 some of it is not all of it there are things that were part of our 146 ask back in the spring that or back in the winter that we're not doing now that we've had to give up and replace with coated related stuff now obviously that's just the world we live in right now but to be clear 1.2 million dollar increase less than a 1% increase from the city of Danbury is very low it's not it does not keep up with arsed are contracted increases it doesn't keep up with our collectively bargained salary increases I understand it's a pandemic I understand the challenges facing the city and I'm supporting this budget and I'm supporting the work that dots of Sal and the cabinet and Courtney did to make all of this work what to be clear this is not enough support from the city of Danbury this is again we are going to wind up being last in funding less than a 1% increase with the challenges we were already facing combined with the challenges we're facing now really leaves us short and we're getting that we're getting a long way to where we need to be but only through a lot of hard work by our administration our staff and I'm very worried about next year so thank you to the staff and city of Danbury please if you can find something else couch cushions under the bed I don't care where you find it please do us a favor and find a little bit more we can absolutely use it thank you very much a thank you for sure Joe Britain yes Rachel to Leske yes Kate Canada yes Gladys Cooper yes Lauren Daley yes Joe DaSilva yes Katherine Hodgson yes yes rich Ginelli yes Cathy Molinaro al Russo yes Amos Bellino yes okay Thank You Erin she made she mentioned the forum we had Monday night we had more than half the participants we we had a subscription that didn't didn't get operationalized apparently but it will be we decided to have another one this coming Friday breakfast forum with me I guess it could take up to a thousand and I rather think if the governor publicizes what he's thinking I probably will have about a thousand people call him you on Friday but we do appreciate the input I think those of you from the board that listen thank you we did take notes there and me and thank in means for sending it out to this is a or forte I mean folks really were considered they knew that we were under strain and if we go dissin sterling they'd like to see it enhanced this is learning point to some are concerned about cleanliness in returning things of that nature that we need to be mindful of also helping although they appreciate the communications weekly and robo calls that some work with parents in terms of supporting disabilities that's the route we go would be very appreciated as well I think Friday but there'll be a little more meeting but data's because I think I'll hear from the governor those things that he's asking the towns to do so the comments will be probably much more clear and useful I did get some comments from the teachers which are appreciated particularly in the arts you know how do you have an art class and how do you do this with with with materials they actually sent me some recommendations I sent over to Kevin that we could put in our in our idea boxes so I thought the night was uh was appreciated by me and I think those parents have participated we're on point and they were helpful to us they said surprise I thank them for that um let me segue into reopening 2020 the constant is the unknown I think the latest and I heard that just this evening Connecticut in fact New Haven and Hartford few two cities that actually had very low numbers of grown in nineteen harvest cases and I think they're waiting for something like this to put together their recommendations so I think the the ink is still wet on the pages that we're going to be hearing about tomorrow and we will hear about it tomorrow we do have a regional group that we have taken the leadership to ask for because it will impact our region we have so many parents there working close by and our teachers and faculty to work a neighboring district it would be nice to have some cohesion in in the dish in the area if it comes down to that so we have asked that this group convened as soon as the governor puts out his edict to us and then we have a committee that's working and from that committee I'm sure we'll have to expand we have a high we have a secondary we have an elementary we'll get some feedbacks from other other folks as Aaron just mentioned both at the elementary school and that group will have to come together and along with the City Health Director to talk to us about the lens of safety because as I promised the parents we might not have the best plan Hey nope everybody's not gonna agree with it but my god we'll try to get the safest plan that we can for our kids so that I guess will be happening on Thursday we'll have superintendents we'll have a peek at it tomorrow apparently and then it will be public to the to the public on Thursday Kevin you want to add to that please Kevin is the liaison by law we have to have one person who's the Czar of reopening I introduced czar Kevin so yes Thank You Sal for appointing me so I just wanted to I'll just add to what dr.

session for the high school and 11:30 to 2:30 for the p.m. session for the high school we we also we are running one accelerated course for the high school this summer and that will actually start on as soon as next Monday the 29th and will continue through July 30th and I know you know Kelly also has some summer programming and so she may want to also give an update thank you Kevin and we have approximately 250 students that are going to participate there students with special needs that will be participating in a virtual special education extended school year program what we have done is we have hired numerous special education teachers support staff occupational therapists physical therapists speech and language pathologists and counseling staff and we have device kids into small groups and they will be scheduled for at least an hour of virtual instruction a day with your special education teacher plus individual or small group sessions with all the related services staff and then in addition to that we will be also providing some online supported activities for reinforcement through the utilization of the Google classroom which was a model that we use during the school year they will have a you know very small group specialized to target on their needs and the really the sole purpose of the special education summer school program is to keep consistency with the scheduling and to avoid regression of skills for any of those students so I have to give a big thank you to my team the five special education supervisors have been working tirelessly along with myself to come up with 250 individualized unique schedules for every single kid that's participating so it's been a little different but we will certainly excited about it I think it'll go very well and what we tried to do is build off of a lot of the things that we put in place this year and we heard the feedback from students and parents and teachers as well on that virtual instruction the live instruction was really helpful and so we are putting a stronger emphasis and focus on that with some supplementary support and activities and we're copying very similar to the secondary model where they'll be an AM and PM session so the total time that we'll run it will be between 8 o'clock in the morning and 1 o'clock in the afternoon but students will be scheduled you know early morning or later morning based on the group that they're assigned to those individual schedules will be mailed out to parents on Monday of next week and teachers will get their class lists and assignments by Friday of this week so I'm excited I think it'll go very well but it certainly has been a unique undertaking this does anyone having a question for Carolyn thank you Carrie ok I think yeah I just wanted the board to be aware that we they call it the kinetic association for athletics CRS see they have with the core we so socialization of high school athletics which means they'll have conditioning and that is to begin July 6th they'll be able to high school with that requirement then the high school along with ship service training our ad and others have been meeting with the nurses and also word flickin saw consultation with the city they set up rules and regulations on safety and so those will be published and given to parents but we just wanted you to be aware that on the July 6 we're gonna they're gonna start seeing athletes which is probably telling all of us they fully expect they have some kind of a season next year whether they're spectators not that's another thing but so that's gonna begin July 6th at Danbury high school there's a morning session and then there's a break for cleaning what-have-you and then the high school will then be reoccupied with another group so that's 32 on July 6th will that be all or just football are we talking just what no no no I believe it's all these lakh people's rest are all any of the kids I want to come actually yeah that's my youngest he's voluntary participation for any of the sports so both the coach it is as well as the student want to volunteer to participate so it's open to all and it will probably assume most of the athletics happy conveyed to the athletes to sign up day calf they have a protocol that they'll be let me just actually I just took it off my agenda I'm sorry let me go back to it I've been asking for what they would they what they're doing Kathleen is there like for example Tuesday a 23rd Dobie athletic staff mean jury duty information with all damn very high school coaches the athletes the trainings will be there on the 24th the information would be shared through the damn very high school website so that all athletes and parents would know last week next week put out Louisville call to Denver High School community what information those students in participating week of the 3rd use of social media at all that week for Denver high school parents that's reparation of the first summer session so they have an outreach plan starting with the orientation of the coaches we have discussion on hiring update where we are since we're in the last meeting yes please so welcome to the last meeting we need midway the first meeting of next year with hiring we're now kind of just starting to ramp up hiring season as many of you might remember as our discussions about enrollment we've done some of elementary teachers in particular to try to measure the ebb and flow of enrollment around the district so that process of relocating and transferring elementary teachers is more or less complete at this point I think everybody's pretty happy with where they're going and so we're in the process of getting those folks settled and that was something that I did in close collaboration with MEA dan Barry and we had some volunteers and so that has all run pretty smoothly as a result there's not going to be a whole lot of elementary hiring it's something very unusual that I don't really clean before there were very few elementary positions we're in the process right now of trying to fill some of the harder to fill a secondary position school level and in special education and as I've mentioned in earlier meetings we are onboarding naturally so my team is doing everything either via email or direct links online and we're actually trying to get ID cards done remotely as well now so we're making the most of our newfound situation and trying to get everybody in as quickly as we can so it'll be a nice know I say this every way it looks like it'll be a later hiring new dress than in years going forward or an papist and we're happy that we haven't had to lose anybody we haven't had any layoffs or furloughs so that's been a really good part of the process summer school employees are all in 100 and those folks have all been transitioned into their new positions and they're all ready to go for the start of summer school as well so we're in kind of full hiring swing now that's where my group is before I leave my report this caracal you have anything to add so you know I was last meeting Cara I did just a little bit her school conversing and I just wanted to let the board know you know you may get some parents this summer asking a we know what they can do with their child and what kind of programming and you know there are definitely limited options somewhere out there because of what's going on but please refer them to the k-12 interactive site it is updated with grade level suggestions for the practice we're highly suggesting the kids continue to use you know what we what's their parents can be assured that that what's there is vetted certainly they're they're bombarded with lots of programs right now that they see on the internet but they're not sure which ones are appropriate which ones are high quality which ones are standards aligned and so you know our team has done that work additionally there are the programs that students normally use during the year we usually close those licenses down and we do a lot of RIRA stirring in the summer but we're leaving those licenses open longer through August 7th so kids can continue to practice and we won't roster next year students with all of those licenses like I Excel arrest kids imagine learning things like that that they're already using we won't do that we won't roll that up and reset that until August so this way kids will have a seamless transition they're able to keep the glaad tops this summer so just you know if you get you know parents or community members who do ask about that you can you know definitely refer them back to that website as a safe place to get some good suggestions for a little practice that's appropriate okay Kelly you good nothing additional for me just the update on okay just to the board are it looks as though our enrollment has kind of slowed down remember last week the week whatever was accelerated so we're kind of like I know we didn't in August yet right but right now it it hasn't accelerated so so much it's kind of slowed down I did if you permit me to make a comment here because of the opening remarks from the parents we won't have time to talk I think part of the board's responsibility in mind is to give notice when things are going to happen in the district that is regarding student comportment our other rules and regs and I believe you know in the cases of the grading into high school which we knew would be very very difficult for a number of reasons we did put folks on notice however it was done it was a very difficult decision to do if you could recall the state was very explicit about equity and access that grading should not have occurred that it should have been a pass/fail but we went the extra step and I'm gonna like Kara spent a few minutes explaining that and why and we knew there would be some positive and negatives about it and I do understand that so Tara do you want to make a few comments sure sure and so you know just just as to remind the group that we did offer students the choice of either choosing their numerical GPA or selecting to opt into the pass/fail system and so you know the the one thing that was clear is that you had to choose a system and then it was up to the student to do that and of course they you know would receive guidance from their parents or teachers to to help them make those decisions and students were given a form to fill out with deadlines and dates we did state that the DLP's that the DLS would not impact GPA so those you know and we held true to that and so if students opted into that this particular quarter and attention a semester depending on the way that it worked they would you know that would not impact the GPA it would basically freeze where they left off after first semester and that what would only be determined was whether or not the students received credit for that course so if the student failed they would not receive credit for the course they would have to retake so they had to do enough to to pass the course and to satisfy the course requirements to get the pass if students wanted the numeric they had to in your system and just to kind of correct the I know we there was a couple questions about class rank we are going to run class rank and so that will you know that will affect everyone class rank is important for a variety of reasons which is one of the reasons why we also wanted to make sure that that new students had an option for numeric grade because there's a whole lot of reasons beyond what's happening now for that in terms of college in terms of scholarship opportunities in terms of different requirements from from programs that are very highly competitive that one that may want to see that so that was why we went the extra mile to offer both systems it was very complicated it was there was a you can imagine with the number of students and the number of teachers in the number of courses you know going through all of those to kind of make sure that the data was clean that there weren't any mistakes you know everything is hand hand clicked by each teacher grade each number each comment and so there's a lot of work on the back end we were not able to run class rank until all of that proofing was done however it was important to get the transcripts out to the colleges by their deadlines so the transcripts did go out they just went out for class rank is being run in the next day or two and that will be updated in PowerSchool and if anyone wants to get an updated transcript all they have to do is simply request it and we can have them come and take it up in the office so we you know we have managed to figure it all out it just took a little bit longer than it normally does under the circumstances and the team at the high school worked incredibly hard to get that to get that done and the data department and worked incredibly hard to verify everything on the back end and to make sure that that was cleaned up we are not running in honor oh we did not think that that was an appropriate thing to do not all kids had the same opportunity in that regards for class rank students did have equal opportunity to make those decisions to preserve their GPA prior to this and so we felt that that was equal so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear you know we felt that we've offered a variety of options that was in the best interest of the students and that was fair for everybody and honored everybody situation to the best of our ability Cara I have a question about rank sure what what lets in I'm thinking nothing so much for seniors I'm thinking more for like freshmen or sophomores or juniors they take a semesters worth of pass/fail grades now that effectively adds that many more credits to where they are it makes it that much harder for them to move their class rank going forward well so what did you know you're betting you're batting a harder to move your batting average and August that it is in April sure but what it also did is it preserved where they were before prior to the disruption so if you had a particularly if you to be you know average of a fee you know going in you you base if you entered into the pass/fail system you kind of froze that if you in the numeric system if you were you know you wanted to choose into the numerix and that numerical grade would feed into the the first semester grade and your GPA would be averaged out cumulatively and that would be weighted and fed into class rank so you had an opportunity to to really to improve your status if you chose to the numerical tenth grades were higher than they were the first semester so basically you either preserved where you were where you left off or you were able to you know the enter your numeric sin to feed into that that GPA which feeds into class rank so it was an opportunity for kids you know kids made the choice based on what was best for them and their situation thanks you're welcome thank you I know we generally don't comment but I thought it was fair that the parents at least heard the border the rationale it was it was like everything else I think you know it was difficult did the end was very difficult with the grading I will tell you that but the verification process was was over the top but that had to happen to be fair to everyone that it was accurate so I need to publicly thank all of those folks that did that with Dan Donovan and his team and the registrar's and everyone else though in counselors so thank you I will move on if it's okay madam chairman yes okay so summit I think I said something to the board but last week I think it was Monday I got a call right after aboard meaning that they would like a representative that walk were to walk through up at the summit I eat a matrix and the state was looking at the ideas whether of getting a building for to accommodate the enrollment that we have asked the city to be mindful of based on the demographers work and that we needed some space and then adjust building a place well the idea of purchasing a place was something that the state wanted to come down and actually take a look so we met with them on Monday and I'm gonna let Cara take it from here because she was there and then I do I have some comments at the end about some things I think the board should think about Joe I did write Joe this morning in this afternoon as well Facilities Committee because I think we're going to have to have a committee meeting and discussion with that but you should hear a little bit cara cara was also invited to visit with I guess the department after the Monday meeting in Hartford just to talked with them the meeting on Monday we had most if not all of our delegation state delegation was in attendance they took a tour as well and then the next day there was a private conversation with the department who would be looking at reviewing the plan if they're going to approve the funding and mr.

román Jeana I do have one it's not a question from the public it's a statement it just says congratulations to the facade part team was successfully completing another school year so that's a comment from someone who was currently watching the stream of this movie before I asked for a motion to accept the agenda any questions okay motion to accept I'll make a motion to accept mr. Shelley yes may have a second please hey mr. broom second okay okay I'll take the motion to accept now mr. Brue yes mr. Capano yes would one abstain on maria kappa no school for nurse mrs. Fredo yes dr. Pantoliano mr. in court yeah mr. Shelley yes except for Kevin Shelley twice page three summer staff and page nine teacher salary as well as Jonathan Janu Chi page for supervisor salary okay thank you mr. Shelley teddy sorry had a mute yes and I obtained on franklamacchia okay I'm sorry could I could come back to me for a second I have to stand on page 14 Jessica foster teacher's aide salary otherwise yes page 14 page 14 Jessica force a teacher aide salary yes thank you okay mr.

um I've still been reviewing the information and kind of I guess because I have a different experience of living through something different within our school district I still I'm not sure where I'm at on this I get for this year because we've ran into situations the covid not being in in school and and different um I for me I would be more inclined to look at doing um a resolution for the for the year so that our staff can can carry it over and part of that too is the conversation we also just had on what do we look like going forward and that this would be in an actual policy change again I understand current situation our staff did not get to use their time because of covid and not only did they not get to use their time they had to work harder and I and I get that um I'm just concerned for future and more so in the next two three years financially what school districts are going to look like and so that's um that's kind of where I'm at as I continue to to read through this to make sure that um it's something that we can sustain going forward that we're not caught with um a lot of a lot of money that needs to be paid out so um that like I said that's just where I'm at I would much rather at least for the moment see a resolution for the 1920 school year so we can take care of those staff members currently and then potentially revisit a permanent policy change for the future Mrs good I just wanted to clarify and maybe I misunderstood something that Mrs Reese said but you mentioned um do we have to approve this no it's just a second read if you approve the second read that is does amend the policy thank you I just wanted to clarify that thank you for clarifying that Mr Glover well I mean I don't know how everybody's feeling I can't I can't read but I I support it so um people are in sick time and and leave and we should pay them for that um a lot of our most dedicated workers will just forfeited anyway but it was nice to know that at the end of their career they can chalk up a couple extra days and and cash her in um so I'm in favor and you know if we need to come back and you know the economics change like 2008 2009 we can revisit it but I think it's fair and reasonable and I support um and I am kind of lumping these together just for my thoughts but I know we have to take each one separately and I will do that I guess too it goes back to the conversation of um and encouraging our staff to take a vacation take a real vacation take those days off and use your vacation because we do appreciate the balance of Life work school job family um and yes I know some people um you know I just want to make sure that when we're taking a vacation we're taking a vacation and it's getting um appropriately um deducted from paychecks because I know like our support staff they you know they're clocking in um in and out it's very clear when they're in in their job and when they're not in their job and when it comes to our um profession do we have professional staff I guess that was the word that we used but we just want to make sure that you know when an administrator is off the campus and taking a day it's taking a day and I think that's kind of where we had the conversation last time and just want to make sure that's happening so um we can if there's no other questions or concerns on 6.4 all those in favor aye those opposed nay nay motion carries 3-0 three two three two sorry three two and six point five I moved that the governing board approves the second read of amendment policy gcd professional staff vacation and holidays second any questions or concerns hey Madam president just one can you tell me about sick days for administrative staff they still earn them at a at a rate so we have to separate go ahead please yes Mr Glover in terms of our general leave here at the district at Higley we call it General levnet sick leave that was a language component that was changed prior to my arrival that is separate and our general leave is a crude per pay period where for our professional individuals in this policy gcd for our administrators those are actually earned not through each paycheck but at a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year July 1 and again at the beginning of the calendar year it's split in half half earned July 1 half earned January 1.

that's why it has to come to the board for approval because it's a prior year bill I'm with you any other questions comments or concerns okay all those in favor aye motion carries five zero okay we're going to move on to 6.8 and this is um Mrs good the motion is on the um it's a recommendation and emotion so do I do the motion or do I make a recommendation that we talk about it and then make a motion at the end of our discussion you can do it either way I can do it either way strictly according to Robert's Rules you're supposed to have a motion on the floor before you the discussion discussion so that's how I would recommend that you do it thank you very good I make a motion that the governing board accepts the donation of a night statue from the United Kingdom boosters second okay we're going to have a discussion about the Statue um as you can see we did get a packet on the statue I'm not even sure exactly where to start but I thought I'd start with a um a little timeline per se of how the statue came to be and how it came to the board tonight and if I have if I need to have a correction Dr Thomason from a meeting that you've attended or if somebody else has something else they'd like to interject please don't feel bad for um interrupting me I will not feel bad don't feel bad so um it was about last year about September um a statue email went out about and I think that's included in our packet the email went out talking about a statue in that paperwork there was no formal paperwork for a fundraiser for the Statue there was no um size scale scope cost in that email that went out there was no I didn't see any emails that came back with any other further information I think at that time the United booster started attending our football games and selling bricks for a statue again no president Keeler members of the board I do believe the the brick um sales came at a later time I'm not sure that they were early on Susan I do know that the paperwork for the cells or the bricks came in February right but Mrs day stated in a meeting that she was at the football games selling bricks or the statues that she was there advertising for the Statue to buy a brick correct I believe that is correct okay just clarifying thank you for that so sometime in January a flyer did come out in an official flyer came out to the entire um I guess Higley High School stating that there was a a way to purchase bricks and there was a way that you could buy a 50 brick a there was all different prices and then there was even larger donations thousand dollar five thousand ten thousand dollars so that came out in January and that kind of perked my interest because I was seeing a very large dollar amount of donations so that in January I reached out to Dr Thomason and we decided to have a meeting with United Kingdom to further discuss how this statue came to be at that point the um the dollar amount had been given out to the community as well so February 10th we had a meeting it was Mrs Reese myself Mr Fields the United Kingdom boosters there were several ladies in attendance and Dr Thomason at that meeting there was a lot of discussion about how the statue came to be but again there was no formal paperwork done at that time for approving bricks to sell for a statue nor was there any approval from the district or Administration approving said statue and this statue is correct me if I'm wrong Dr Thomason it is 12 feet high 12 and a half feet how does president Kayla members of the board um the actual size of the statue I have as um let's see with the base it's ten and a half feet high it is uh 126 inches for the Statue if the base were included on it um it was two feet base if I remember correctly it is it is a 20 uh 20 32 inch space okay so a little over two feet and the total cost that we have seen on the paperwork is ninety thousand dollars correct president Keeler members of the board with the the cost of the statue and also the base it's an estimated hundred thousand dollars hundred thousand dollars so sometime at our meeting on the February 10th we had discussed um like you know how much they had been um fundraising for said statue with the bricks and I believe at that meeting it was about twenty thousand dollars is that what you remember too Mysteries um I don't recall what they had raised at that point we talked about the grant at that but what had at that meeting it was indicated 20 000 had already been paid towards the statue maybe that's where I had my twenty thousand um we also discussed placement and things like that there was a lot of discussion at that meeting and then um at that meeting there was another conversation that we were going to hold a community meeting on February 25th so that the United Kingdom could come out to the entire community and share with them the vision the information everything they could about the Statue that was the date I believe it was February 20th that the paperwork was finally signed for getting permission to the district to approve said statue we did have a meeting on February 25th with all of the community members that wanted to come in attendance and again there was a lot of discussion Mr Glover was there Mrs Wilson was there lots of discussion on how this statue came to be who whose idea was it the funding how it it went from I think Dr Thomason even has the paperwork the seven to nine foot then it went to a 12-foot um there was just there's a lot of communication so with that I'd like to open it up to anybody else that has concerns questions or anything they'd like to discuss about the statute I would like to start first of all um I wasn't part of I don't understand why other board members are being involved on this statute decision I've been on this board for for six years now playground equipment things like that I don't see board members sitting on committees to prove playground equipment for the schools this is way out of our league okay I'm not here to worry about this or that and and statues and things like that this is not for us to be involved with and meeting on all these type of things and and I wasn't shared with any of this that you guys went to all these meetings and had conversations I didn't get any memos on that and I think this is kind of Auto league on this um what I'd like to say is that um I like to if Allison day is out there watching I'd like to tell her thank you for what you have done Higley is fortunate to have an individual in our community to make a difference in this way and all the hurdles that she has gone through and to to talk to businesses and all these things I applaud her I mean this is incredible the amount of work that this lady has done and that's what makes Higley special and and to have a statue over at Higley High School that's going to be for generations to come the statue is going to be there so so I applaud you Alice a day out there and for your leadership and for making a difference in the Higley Unified School District and I wish we had more people just like her to make this a wonderful school district and uh you know what we need to move on let's approve this you know I guess I'm from the Midwest and when somebody gives you a gift you say thank you very much and you move on okay and that's what I told my children when you get a gift you say thank you very much and you move on and for this conversation about all where is it going to be located oh how many feet all this these people had our a whole committee and they've got this together and they brought this forward let's just say thank you very much wherever they put it and let's move on we have a lot of other things to cover here tonight okay guys and and um that's I just want to say that thank you very much and let's move on okay Mrs Wilson I was a former PTO president as you all have been aware I'm no I'm not shy to share um I read every thing that was given to me from the district I went to The District board meeting where they talked about ptos how and essentially this is what a booster is I will use those terms interchangeably I'm sorry if anybody wants to use booster versus PTO I think they're very close I went to every meeting I whatever you guys told me to do I did it there was no mention of paperwork when giving a gift I will tell you that because I did it I looked online uh at least four years ago when I was PTO president there was no paperwork for me to fill out that I was given when I gave a gift I gave gifts I went back actually into the closet to look did I do any paperwork I did not I did give gifts over a thousand dollars I looked that up I never did paperwork you guys never approved it um it was radios in fact uh that was a safety concern they needed him I bought them um I think we've all worked our tails off for ptos I've heard Mr ratovich say that he worked for citrus sales Mrs Reese did her fair share at the band concerts Mrs Kaylor at uh Cortina sorry I almost said Centennial and Sossaman and Mr Glover as a teacher you I'm sure have put in your fair share for time for ptos we want to take this gift we want to say thank you I'm going to have the sediment that Mr watovich said you say thank you um also I want to just uh I have like four pages on this I'm going to condense it down sorry that's been in my heart for a little bit we've all talked about this um in our separate groups of course and there's been conversations regarding it um I want to say that if we are going to have stipulations on our gifts that we need to make it very in writing have a our our whole board has always been process in procedure I've never seen a process and procedure on this I would love to have known that this is good gave a speech and told us what we can and cannot do it was a lot of Finance what you don't want to do for PTO you do not want to embezzle money and that's what I came away with from that meeting I never came away with a sheet that said this is what you have to do to give a gift to the school so I'm putting that out there I think if we're gonna make if we're gonna say no to this gift you need a process and procedure and it's not there right now I will be voting yes on the Statue and I did read all the emails that everyone sent even though I did not reply to them after a certain time there was so many and I did read them all up until four o'clock so you were heard your voices were heard I've listened this is all I got sure Mrs Wilson reference I just like to make a comment on our emails um I did receive a lot of emails and it was 98 in reference to supporting this statue president Kaylor yes Mrs Reese just wanted to go through my notes Mrs Wilson says we have notes and notes and um just so Mr watovich understand we we didn't sit on a committee for this as board members we were invited to a conversation um regarding the statue that it was coming um the Higley Community was unaware of it information was posted on Facebook about it and when people started asking questions about what is it how big is it where is it going those were all removed off of Facebook and they Mrs day had indicated she was advised to remove anything off of Facebook so it can stay up stay positive even though people were just asking questions where my concern is and I agree as far as gifts and where my concern is is that um if I want to give you a gift I can't just go put it in your yard that would need to be a conversation we would have I can't just go put 10 11 foot something in your in your front yard because it's a gift and there was limited conversation with site Administration site Administration did not know the size the scope they had no idea that what was coming other than we want to work on a statue the thought of a statue promoting their school I am all for something of this size creates additional expense cost for the district and during that conversation um a lot of information kept changing and um part of it was that there was supposed to be a grant but then determined that Grant was not for the Statue it was actually for um Landscaping and it was also stated that student council had approached United Kingdom in that community meeting it indicated that student council had approached the United Kingdom about the Statue when in our meeting on the 10th it was the United Kingdom who approached student council to ask them for a donation not that it would be a not that it would be their senior gift so then um it was also discussed that student council had indicated this had been talked about for years and speaking to some student council students who graduated in 2019 there was no no mention of a statue Within their time at Higley so it wasn't a long-term thing my concern is that we have um no communication with Administration that they're not working together and I understand your comments Mrs Wilson but as PTO if you're giving a gift of a permanent structure you work with your Administration when ptos do a gift for shade structures they work with their Administration they work with their site councils they determine the size the district has a say in what color how much how big it can be things like that so you work with your site Administration prior to a purchase or fundraising for an item can I interject here I saw an email that said that they had there was no it's in our board doc there's an email and it even listed the people and it had Mr fields on it and what I think Mrs Reese's stating is there was no details there was no size scope cost um there was my iPad just failed I know um so that was even during some of the conversations we had there there wasn't even a size and a scope given to anyone until February 25th so our conversation on February 10th included Mr fields and included new United Kingdom and even at that time on February 10th they still didn't have details they couldn't share exactly all the details of it so site Administration was unaware of the size the scope what it would take with a an item this large not only does it need to include your site Administration but we also have to include the town of Gilbert it's large it has to be mounted and so my concern and like I said even on our meeting and on February 10th Mr fields indicated the only thing he knew was that United Kingdom wanted to do a statue he had no idea what the size was he had no idea what the cost was um the sale of the bricks to fundraise for it was not approved until February when um they had been in fact selling them um and then through that in um in what was approved on February 20th was for the fundraising and then through conversation and and investigation that there was no approval for the initial fundraiser no one had approved the statue and no one gave authorization for this process to start I agree we we need our our PTO members our booster members we need them to help support our schools but we need to work with our schools and we need to have communication and approval and work together in items especially of this nature this is going to be a permanent structure on our campus and when you're not having any conversation regarding details foreign places it it can't even go because of its size but you haven't even worked with your Administration and through the conversation um an investigation excuse me in March I was even advised that the district was going to stop this process and deny it so um that they were going to contact Mrs day during that second week of spring break since they were out of town but then we all know covet came and and then further discussion indicated that it would need to come to the board so my concern is that this was done without the approval for fundraising on the campus it was done without conversation of details and working through that with the site Administration so um I do like the thought of a statue I do think that that can bring value this thing is very large it does present DET or difficulties to the campus as well as the district and that it was not done in conjunction with the site Administration those are are what my concerns are quite to follow up on some of these all the questions all the concerns that I'm hearing from board members these questions should be asked of your superintendent and administration this is not our board it's not our business here people I'm not going to sit here at a board meeting and discuss playground equipment and I don't like the color of the playground equipment the playground equipment is too big this is not our business if you have a question you question Dr Dr Thomason about this today we're getting a gift thank you very much and Mr ratovich I hear you and we did have these conversations with Dr Thomason and like I stated it was in March advice to me that the the district was not going to approve this and that it was going to be handled at the district level and that it would not be coming to the board foreign did you want to say something oh okay um I lost my train of thought now you want to go because I just lost my train and thought well I don't want to ruin it looks like I'm the deciding vote for a change [Laughter] you want me to go all right well I will so um well I agree with my colleagues at the far end of the of the table um you know this is so weird 2020 here we have it's the year that statues are tearing apart communities um you know we have to move forward whatever the vote is and I just want to remind everybody you know I've lost more than my fair share of votes uh but we we leave and we support the decision of the majority that's the way serving on a board works and it's uh it's we have to find a path forward so I want to talk about that in a minute but my questions are similar to Mr watovich is this thing going to be safe does it require maintenance and ongoing funding those questions have been answered for me yes it's it's it will be safe um and any funding these guys have agreed to pay for so it's I'm not spending any Higley unified tax money on it and I'm inclined that that that's what shapes my vote um you know the there's no way to measure the opportunity costs of a statue so does that mean that our bathrooms aren't going to be clean because someone donated money to us we have no way of knowing that at all and uh it's a waste of time to even speculate about that so personally as a citizen is this something the cost that I would contribute to no and I didn't but as a board member hey thank you that's that's lovely we have some lacks processes and it's it's bad practice to pick and choose when we realize that some of our processes aren't being followed we have to dig deeper and we got to fix that system um but this is this has been a mess and I'm not calling anybody out by name specifically but um very ugly mud slinging back and forth social media is absolutely no way to govern and I just want to chastise you know a lot of people the people that emailed me thank you you put your name on it I know who you are I read them like you did thank you but social media blasting out and trying to legislate I mean look at the look at our government officials that try to legislate on social media it's not working out very well and we should really stop doing that and we should set a good example for our kids on social media this is why thank God Facebook is done because people are mean so you know we tell our kids when we teach them is what you're writing kind is it constructive and helpful and would you say it to somebody's face and as a community I think we need to be reminded of that if you're not willing to say it to somebody's face then maybe it's best you don't type it or think of another way to phrase it and that goes to a lot of people in this I think personally the kids that I saw have seen and talked to acted way better than the adults and you can people can be as mad at me as they want to be for saying it but that is my perception those poor kids wanted to have some for the end of a school year and adults took away that opportunity for them and it would have been nice uh you know I'm not a statue person like I said but that's what they wanted and you know this telling kids to not go for something because it's grandiose we are going to have as a society huge problems to solve and if we tell kids who just it's too much don't even try then we're not doing ourselves as a society any favors either so that I guess I'm way off off point here but we need to make sure that our principals and ptos do a better thorough job and have a better thorough understanding of when they want to undertake a project because this has been disruptive to everybody and to this entire community and I think we need to vote and move past it so understand the frustrations on all sides but um it's not my if that's what people want to give their money to thank you very much I will follow up with as a parent I feel like Mr Glover as a board member I have to wear this hat and as a parent my kid is over there and has told me not to vote for this I am wearing a different hat and I'm a board member first at this point and that will be my caveat to that I do think we can I talked to Mrs good we can approve this with the I don't know what word did you give me yesterday you gave me some fancy word that we could approve this with that the United Kingdom has to maintain and I don't know what you told me exactly and I should have written it down well both scheduled and unexpected like at the moment I'm just I'm is a condition but I don't think that was the word but there was a condition that we can could have been a contingency but that really doesn't fit very with the word that we can put with this that they have to maintain if there were to be something wrong some kids were to damage it in any way or the maintenance we can put that contingency in correct this is good yes okay just as that's some thought for it sorry no so um some of my concerns is the placement of this statue um they would like it they they're some of their in their email or in their packet um one was to remove some cafeteria tables and put it in the courtyard Dr Thomason said that is absolutely not possible it is not it's too heavy and too big to be in our Amphitheater so at this point Dr Thomason the only place that you have told me that this statue can be placed and that is if it is approved would be out underneath the scoreboard now the scoreboard is the north entrance of our campus and that is where our 6A football team is going to continue to enter correct or no Am I Wrong president Keeler I think that there may have been a misunderstanding I would say that there are some other places we can put it in the courtyard would not be an appropriate place for it but um back of the second side we would have to at the cost of the booster club reinforce the ground so it wouldn't it's not that it's too heavy right now we could not just place it there the concrete would have to be busted up we would have to get an engineer and it would have to be placed there with the proper footings so I think there was a little bit of misunderstanding there okay um and again I go back to and I know I understand your position on this Mr ratovich um I've spoken to a lot of teachers on the campus a lot of students on the campus and there seems to be a lot of negativity of having this on their campus they don't think it's bringing value they want it for Spirit um but there's been other students in the past at Higley High School that have wanted to plant trees and they were denied because the cement being torn up would cost the district too much money or the club too much money so they couldn't do that so there is absolutely something to be said about the district having a say what does come on our campus and what does not come on our campus and so again I go back to this was created this was fundraised for this was built without any formal approval of any administrator any District employee is that correct Dr Thomason uh president Kaylor members of the board there was some knowledge of a statue but but the cost and the size and the scope of the statue was not brought to my attention until uh the 2020 school year or the 2020 fiscal or the year January or February so I guess that goes back to my concern of a policy we were talking at our Retreat policy and procedure and there is a form which you saw Mrs Wilson in the thing that has to be filled out when something of that scale is brought to a campus and they do work with Administration and they do have that conversation there have been gaga gaga courts donated again you work with the administration on where that's going to be before fundraising even begins and this was just done a little bit backwards for me completely and so I'm concerned about the president that I will be saying by saying yes to this when nothing was followed that is out there and Mrs good I know that you do have those meetings with the boosters but there are definitely forms that people fill out for having Food Truck Friday or any kind of fundraiser and things like that those forms are within our ptos correct as far as I know the forms that you're talking about that have to be filled out for the food trucks and some of the um carnivals and those activities those are Insurance matters and those documents go to our insurer they don't go to them but the insurer sets up the kind of information that you need to be to give so those are the forms that are used they're the only ones I know about president kaler Mr Mr Holland we do also have another form if you're going to have a food truck Friday it's an exception form that they have to file that we keep one filed um as a requirement with the Department of Education what is an exception form what is that actually um to stay in compliance with our national school lunch program okay thank you president Kaylor um and that's the joy of this board is that we have different perspectives and we can agree and we can agree to disagree and Mr Glover I you chuckle you know I agree with you more than I then I don't and um to me I think social media is the devil I I believe in keyboard courage and and I agree and I don't I don't use social media and and I agree with you if you can't say it to somebody don't type it um and I completely agree with that um we have talked a lot about processes and um the thought of being able to bring anything onto our campus we are a public school campus to bring anything onto our campus without working with your Administration without your Administration approval um we have we have denied other things coming onto campuses so um I agree that gifts are amazing and I don't disagree that Mrs day has worked really hard on this my concern is putting something of this size of this dollar amount without working with your Administration and without getting the proper fundraising approved um we we did not have that information before this process started um the question came about is what happens if they don't they haven't raised the entire amount for this statue so they're committed to this statue what happens if the fundraising doesn't raise the entire amount who's on the hook for that Mrs day told us they would be that they made that personal guarantee um that and Mrs Wilson you know that's a not a good practice of fundraising that you make sure you raise the funds that you are clear of what you're purchasing how it's going to go like I said I can't just go plop something in your yard because I want to give it to you there's rules there you have an HOA I'm sure they wouldn't approve that and so I would work with you and I would say Mrs Wilson I'd really like to give this to you how how can we make this work and um without working with the administration other than knowing they wanted a statue um is where my concern is and with Mrs kaler I setting the Precedence of I can bring anything I choose to do so to donate to a campus without their approval um doesn't sit well with me because it could be inappropriate and this is uh this is a precedence of that so um but I hear everything you are all saying I wish this process had been done differently I wish that that the boosters had worked with Administration that we could make sure it's what the school wants as we've all heard from people we have heard both sides of it um and without the process of working with the the school in the administration for something of this size this magnitude that like Mrs good said we can put a caveat into is very it's going to ultimately um be an issue and and that's why Mr Glover this is before us today it has been a huge distraction for six months and we do have more important things to to focus on I'd like to say in closing real quick um the board members that have some concerns your concerns are with the Higley Unified School District administration okay these people our boosters are volunteers they're not paid okay so so you're sitting there going oh they didn't ask this they didn't ask this come on these people are volunteers we are blessed that they're in our community that they're going to give us a statue and now you're somebody saying well maybe they should put some more money if they're going to clean it come on we don't say this as somebody bringing a playground equipment and saying five years if it breaks down this is ridiculous okay let's move on thank you very much for the Statue let's move on they actually did agree to to uh help pay for the ongoing maintenance which is a minimum okay but they did so all these there is no Higley unified we're not ex the board is not expending any money for this and people need to be really understanding of that but we do have I mean I printed them out policy kcd-r and kcd we do have this and this is the reminder if we learn anything from tonight that this the cabinet needs to review with the schools to be sure that there is a very very clear understanding because God help anyone if this happens like this again it should not we have these policies and we should follow them and it's just sometimes policies come to mind and you got to remind people that we have them for a reason thank you Mr Glover and I guess that's where I'm just going to land is that I don't believe that policy and procedure was followed I don't even think best practices was followed when it comes to fundraising before any type of approval so again this should not have come to the board this could have stopped at the district level when things were not followed according to our policy and procedure so but it is brought to us and it's brought to us tonight and that was my doing putting the agenda together because I do believe that moving forward reopening our schools and the safety of our community needs to be our Forefront I do appreciate all of our volunteers that work in our schools I was one of them for many years and I would still love to do some um in my ability as a board member as well I appreciate all the hard work that our volunteers do I appreciate our donors as well I just believe too that our donors need to know exactly what they're getting and what's happening and I believe that money was given to something that they didn't even know exactly those details and I don't think that's fair to a donor to be very honest I think donors should know exactly what are they donating to I've talked again to many of our staff who they are not in support of this statue and so just because of other reasons to them they didn't feel that they were included in any conversations on what spirit means to a school and and it went from a 20-year commencement statue and now it's the senior class gift there was lots of things that changed along the way for me personally as a parent just attending meetings as a parent but also as a board member I was given information one day it was this and then I the the district is going to you know deny it but now it's here so yes I agree that we just need to have a vote and move forward from here on however that goes any other comments just as a quick comment Mr ratovich I hear you and as a reminder we too are unpaid volunteers so um I get it we give our time our money and everything else as well so um we are also in that category and for some as Mr Glover always brings up we get beat up one way or another there's no doubt after this particular vote we are going to get beat up one way or another and we will it's this has been very decisive in our community and people are very passionate one side or another so we too are volunteers and we give our time and we do our due diligence and um and and we do sometimes take a beating for it so that's for sure and this is not one of those that can make everybody happy at the end of the day so any other questions or concerns should I add a contingency to my original motion this is good I I don't want a contingency on this we're here to accept the gift or not not start saying you know if it rains outside let's just move on with the gift please anybody else okay all those in favor aye those opposed nay nay motion carries 3-2 congratulations Higley you'll have a new Statue soon um future agenda items 7.1 we have some future agenda items already still coming you can look through our um things here how we prepare students Beyond life we change that wording from portrait of a graduate after our Retreat thank you Dr Foley is there anything anybody else would like to add for the future president Keeler members of the board yes Mr Dr Thomason yes at the next board meeting I would like to bring forward the proposal for the jewel lawsuit so that would be happening on the 15th should the board want to move forward with that thank you for that add that to the list thank you Mrs reach for finding that we talked about it but didn't vote on it uh that was what it was we had memory of Jewel and vaping we just didn't thank you for finding that Okay so um we are going to move on finally all those watching us online we are going to move to our work study which is going to be a presentation with Dr Foley on reopening of our schools we'll take a five minute break please thank you Brian are we ready thank you so much welcome back thanks for the little break um we are going to have a lovely update from Dr Foley and her team reopening Higley school task force will extra people be coming in there is going to be extra people that's why we have those desks set up in the back to keep them social distancing as Dr Dr Foley's task force included many people uh president kaler hope president kaler members of the board uh thank you uh for tonight we have an exciting presentation for you but I am also going to give you a precautionary tell so what you see and what you hear tonight is probably going to change we've done the very best we can to put together an incredible program for opening school next year but with that being said from last week to this week things have changed from the end of May to now things have changed three or four times so I do want to tell you that uh the precautionary tell for our teachers our students our staff we're doing the very best we can in an Ever Changing world of covid the task teams have worked very very hard kind of like with graduation we had plan A B C D E F G and so on and until we were able to do what we could for the Higley Unified School District to the best of our abilities and I thought that our our high schools pulled off an incredible High School graduation during the covid-19 situation and so tonight I just want to make sure that we enter with caution that we know what we say today may change tomorrow and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr Don Foley to start us with our presentation for preparing for the 2021 school year Dr Foley thank you Dr Thomas said lots of info information that we want to share with you and it's all going to center around the theme you'll see here our covid theme one of the things we want to share is that everything we say is yes subject to change but the preparation for being ready for whatever comes our way our team has been diligently working forward we're working forward towards and we'll be sharing with you tonight an overview of those things we want to also acknowledge that it truly that again at this time there are multiple perspectives views concerns and we are obviously open to hearing all of those things and sometimes we'll be forced to have decisions or communication that may not always be what you were hoping for or what you or or feel comfortable with and so we acknowledge and accept that we are committed to ongoing communication one of the things that this planning has allowed us to do and you'll kind of hear a timeline of what we're doing and what we're thinking about from multiple levels but what this will allow us to do is be better in our communication with more explicit details tonight we'll be able to provide some of that information one of the things is that this is we're going to require us to be nimble and be quick so you'll hear about versatile planning that's been happening not that predetermined decisions have been made but that either way we have to go we're ready to accommodate you'll hear tonight about safety and you'll hear about health and young Hillary about the role that our individuals our community members our students our families and their role in helping to help be part of the Safety and Security that we're putting in place for options and you're also going to hear about our dedication to high quality education with the options that we're providing a lot of work has happened since we started into the remote learning in March and so we'll talk a little bit about all kinds of options and things we're talking about also know that this is an overview the amount of work that has happened in these committees we could have multiple several hour studies on each one one of the things we want you to know is that we have used some common resources it's important to know that um this is the world is evolving the resources we're using continue to change what we learn one day evolves and shifts the next you know if we recall back in May you know the CDC first came out on May 5th with some guidance May 19th they created a Guidance the Ade started their task force on May 7th um June 1st was the first day that the road map was released fortunately we were involved when this Pro Higley had representation was involved in this process all along so we knew what resources were coming what models existed so we could use common tools what we are using in in Higley obviously is Arizona's road map to give us some guidance but then we're interpreting what does that mean for us in Higley utilizing National models and examples and our own hingley expertise on what will and won't work in our buildings and in our schools with our leaders on May 28th we brought our administrators together on a team's meeting and we rolled out the fact that this was going to be a marathon and this is going to be a Sprint and as we go in this is I mean this is not a Sprint this is a marathon I mean we're going to need to to get moving and get quick here and and work together and one of the things we talked about was that um we needed involvement across all levels so we started our task force on that day and we defined a framework for us to work in where we had uh Cabinet member Leaders with departments who created subcommittees who worked together to begin getting information discussions plans checklists ideas on concerns we brought all perspectives together and then we also had individuals who were advisory members who once a document a checklist a frequently Asked question or something was created we asked them to help provide feedback I will tell you that we've been work these the teams have been working really really hard because we can we could sit for days and have conversations about what we could do what should we do what might happen um but then we had to get busy with putting some pin pin to paper and ideas down and start creating work um and outline it so you will see here that our task teams from this framework there were areas so Ed Services had a test had test teams and they were looking at what would Elementary model look like what would the secondary instructional model look like with very using these these Frameworks using these schedules what might we what considerations did we need to put in place so that whatever comes our way as as things change we could be responsive we looked at what our health and safety practices would be what are those protocols what are those screenings what are those checklists what what considerations do we need to have across our early childhood centers what does it look like in those buildings special education Human Resources was taking a look at our our employees returning to work um benefits frequently asked questions uh decision trees we had obviously facilities grounds Transportation rent uh you know our rentals Athletics also had task teams working through Logistics here what's interesting about this is that all of these are are dealing with unique different scenarios and challenges and yet there's lots of overlap what you'll see here is that these were the individuals and this was comprised of are some of our administrators they were surveyed to ask us what would your choice be and where we if do you want to help this what would your choice be and then we also had individuals who reached out to us saying I want to be involved here's how I could be you how could I be utilized so we had multiple roles in there you'll see that we had leaders who who volunteered to be co-chair people to lead this work because multiple meetings were happening at multiple times they were working closely with their cabinet member because they would bring information that said need a decision here here's a noisy need help us figure it out let's let's coordinate together co-chairs worked with other co-chairs so that there where there was consistency there wouldn't be overlap we were sharing documents so that one one checklist didn't contradict another so a lot of people were involved multiple eyes included president either members of the Border my mic's working now sorry but I also want to say as Dr Foley has done an incredible job of bringing together all of our stakeholders including administrators teachers parents and classified staff so This truly was uh Committees of all stakeholders within within our district so she's done an absolutely incredible job to make sure that we wanted to and be very inclusive in this aspect so I will share with you that these this is just and again we would like to thank everybody who are on these lists these were the different committees and the individuals who were part of doing a lot of the work and then bringing it back to the team and looking through that we even had groups of people who didn't who shared their perspectives their questions their concerns looking at drafts I will tell you that we've been moving as fast as we possibly can to get information to people and I feel like we're burning the midnight oil sending things to people on Thursday night saying thank you please get us information back by Monday so that we can do draft frequently asked questions number 30 with combining you know information so trying to be as responsive as possible could not have done it with that without the leadership of our leaders in this district and their collaboration with each other and our teachers who reached out to be part of this and give their feedback being honest I I feel like we have done our very best to be think through things together one of the things we want to share is we do not have that talking about the crystal ball we don't have one um there are some un our favorite category is the unknown unknowns that we don't know that we should be preparing for um but what we have done was using the guidance using our expertise work through the scenarios the best that we can with our information to kind of help share where we are at tonight in preparation for what may be coming um one of the things we also said is that our filters what are our filters that we're running this through obviously health and safety is important our quality education is essential whether you're in the classroom or remote and we learned a lot in remote learning and actually we're doing training with teachers before they left on how to utilize a common platform K-12 and we've had ambassadors working all summer and teachers aware of of preparing and moving forward obviously respecting diverse opinions and hearing concerns to address it to the most to the fullest potential possible and ongoing communication the thing that all of our community that all of our committees grappled with though is you have guidance you have your guidance and then you have um what's reasonable feasible and attainable so we called it the FBA you know um how do we take this guidance and make it reasonable and feasible so we're going to start talking about the fact that um there are things that are not always possible but what we're going to talk at night about we're going to be honest about what we can do and what we can't do and what we're going to do to address those things so that parents can make informed decisions and we're going to start also with with looking at what did our community say and feel when they gave us input and and I have our wonderful Mr lotzenheiser and Mrs Richards who are going to share with you the results that we learned from our community well in this survey that was sent out the first of June so good evening president kaler and board community and of course cabinet thank you for taking time tonight to understand our process and I was going to introduce him but she already did so he's going to take it away bored I am a rookie first of all I'd like to say thank you for allowing me the opportunity to join the team here in Higley and I look forward to serving the community of Higley together welcome to by the way thank you for being here thank you so as you can see uh from the slides on June 3rd we started and submitted two different surveys a parent surveying an employee survey to get the pulse of the community and of our employees 4 318 responses by families which came out to approximately 7 500 students were represented by the surveys which gave us a return response rate somewhere around 60 percent so I think that is actually fantastic in terms of a response rate and gave some validity to the survey and the results that we're seeing from the employee side we have 899 responses which is about 62 percent of our employees that responded to the survey so this is the brief right off the bat we wanted to know are you planning to come to work or attend school in the 20 2021 school year and you can see overwhelmingly uh very easy to see in the pie graph we had 88 of our parents said yes and 97 of our employees said yes in in reaction to the quarter four of last year we took a look and asked do you prefer the district provide your students remote learning only and overwhelmingly our community said no 20 percent said yes we would look at that only eighty percent saying no those were all our moms that were like take them back please a few of us dads are like that too and dads yes okay okay whoever was home with the kids is the one who was answering this um when we look just to break down a little bit further amongst our employees 67 percent of the responses came from certified employees while 33 percent uh are from our classified employees so when you take a look the the purpose of this slide is to show you the breakdown by grade level of the responses and when I first looked at it when I got I said wow this is great absolutely we had we had representation from all grade levels and very positive support across uh the the splits on our grades so that's once again adding validity to our survey the next one shows what schools will your child be attending or where were you where will your workplace be and you can see we had great representation from all schools and at the same time with our workplaces I would like to give a shout out to Transportation who had the most responses amongst employees I believe it's 90 94 responses so with that I'll turn it over to Mrs Richards okay so we can look at data in multiple ways numbers percentages and colors and so I love looking at the greens and the blues on these Circle graphs and so when you look at those those tell you if somebody's very comfortable or somewhat comfortable so we ask our parents with increased safety protocols how comfortable are you sending your kids back to school 69 of these parents said Barry or somewhat then we ask employees the same type of question how comfortable are you returning to work in person and you'll see 73 of them said very comfortable or somewhat comfortable foreign was it just the question or did you say these were the safety features that are going to take place because if you just said well you Greg would you like to come back to school versus if somebody said well we'll have this this and this I would answer a lot differently so is there any other questions and you're going to see communication that we sent out in our FAQs about what those extra safety precautions look like and so there's been a lot of communication when we sent this out we hadn't done as much of that but we have worked so hard in these task teams to get all those protocols and resources in place so next we ask Mrs Richards yes I just had a quick question did it say at the top of the survey something about there was an option for a mask the first question was something about Snapchat I took the survey but I know everything has changed since then so I thought I would bring that up there was a for Mr watovich who probably didn't take the survey um it did say something about does anybody remember it indicated that that mass would be that mass would be optional and keep in mind that when this was sent this was uh the first it was July June 3rd um and this was previous to to changes in Arizona cases and pre prior to any ordinances in place but that was something I wanted to help you kind of get there like that was a caveat I guess that's my work tonight so that was a caveat and I thought that might be helpful if you didn't take the survey to know that that was on there and we're going to talk about a bunch of the comments in a minute but that's the number one comment this okay both ways Mrs Richards real quick just I know because this is what I heard a lot of and and since we're going through the survey at the moment we are very aware the circumstances have changed within our state between the time people took these surveys to right now and I can just imagine people watching going yes but I would change my answer right now so I I just want to make that clear that we're just going off of the information we're going through this like you guys and they're going to have an opportunity yes to tell us what they want whether they want to come back in person or if they're uncomfortable so you're exactly right um June 19th everything changed so yeah while we're continuing to go through these survey questions I just want to make it very clear if anyone's watching and they're kind of yelling at their screen going but that's what are you doing I did answer this but I would change my answer to this that we're aware of it but we're just going through the data we're aware of when it was taken and we are keeping that into consideration and there will be future steps that you guys are going to go over I just don't want someone having a coronary watching it going thank you for making that clear all right one of the questions we also asked would was how comfortable would you be with your child in a hybrid model which could look like two days in school and the other time at home online and you're going to see that that looks different than the first slide we looked at 49 of our parents said they'd be comfortable or somewhat comfortable and same thing with our staff and our teachers 67 said percent said they would be comfortable president Kaylor members of the board I would also like to remind you at this time even though this survey question was posed that there is no funding mechanism for this to happen with the state at this time they have made no accommodations uh to change the Arizona revised Statute that requires a certain number of hours or a certain number of hours per year over 180 Day School calendar so even though we did ask this question at this point in time there have been no changes made to statutes to allow this to happen and receive funding for those students that's important thank you for clarifying that um the last thing we asked was how comfortable are you going fully remote or online from home 30 of our parents at this point in time said comfortable or somewhat comfortable and 50 percent of our employees said that so we did have some experience with this the last quarter and like you said a lot of parents were taken back we don't know how to do this we respect you guys we want them back but one of the most important things when you give a survey is to look at your comments and we had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments so we looked for themes things that kept coming up and I mentioned this The Mask came up over and over and at that point in time it was I don't want my student wearing a mask they're not coming back to school if you make them and there were parents that said we want them to wear a mask and like we said this is prior to Gilbert's town council's uh emergency order that we are all following now so there was a theme we want kids back in school we want them learning and they talked a lot about social emotional time which is lunch recess specials after school activities Athletics so that's what we saw um they also talked about their kids had a very hard time being away from structure their teachers their friends and it was tough on them emotionally the other thing we saw unfortunately was the quality of the remote learning could be improved so guess what we took that to heart we put systems in place and they're going to talk more about canvas K-12 shortly as we get into the instructional models our teachers said things like let's get back to work let's put safety measures in place I miss the kids the kids feel happy and safe at school so we have a lot of teachers that I'll just put it this way they were hurting too one of the things that we look forward to sharing with our community at the end of this week is a majority of the questions and themes that were asked we now have answers for to help help you better make a decision when we ask you to determine for us what you want for your student right now our FAQs from our staff and our from our community are addressing this and was the heart of the work of those processes procedures and pieces that we have in place that that we're going to talk a little bit about tonight so that that families will hear more about specifics in that those documents that will be going on at the end of this week so again those feedback survey questions we now have answers to to the greatest extent possible that we look forward to addressing there were some other pieces that came up with oh and those surveys that we want to address and share as well with some information at this moment so one of the things we've talked about quite often is the school calendar we know that the Higgin Unified School District starts approximately a month from now and so there's lots of conversation and lots of talk of should we postpone that so at this time it would be the recommendation of the board to not postpone that and there were several reasons we thought about that and in considerations so possibly moving the starting date would limit the length of our breaks and may not benefit our students should we close again so if that happens we should we would have that less of the time to have with our students uh we're a live a face-to-face instruction also too um with our current decision it allows for two weeks or 16 days every nine weeks that we could utilize as a natural break for isolation or to keep keep students away from each other as recommended by the CDC should we have an outbreak we also know that some of our neighbors are changing their start date too some are supposed to start a week before us and some are supposed to start a week after us careful consideration was given to the Higley Unified School District being at a separate date should a spike hit we know it's not just going to be in Higley Unified School District that it might be across the State of Arizona and we would be in a place to where we could have a separate start time from the rest of our communities to take care of our communities and our students should something happen so that was a lot of conversation in regards to our school calendar and whether we should change the time and date of our school calendar so at this time it's our recommendation to keep that although we know it may be out of our hands and it may be changed for us I was watching a neighboring District as we were coming in I came early to watch their decision um so I was watching what they were doing how they were deciding their survey I was looking at that information as well um I think it's a good decision to keep the way you want Dr Thomason um it sounds like there's some mess over there that they're gonna have to start cleaning up for that so we're going to talk more about options for families so this is kind of like the spoiler part of this then we're going to talk more about what this looks like but basically we are we have prepared options for families and they're going to have essentially two options now you're going to hear about multiple plans tonight we asked you about hybrid we asked you about back to school as normal as possible we're looking at two two options I like to talk with my hands I apologize two options the first option is full-time in-person option now full-time in-person option with the goal to returning as normal as possible with with everyone being able to go back the idea of a hybrid is that that is some a hybrid is some as it is put in place to allow for more social distancing opportunities so um in-person learning schedules would be a potential option there so we're looking for full-time in person the other option would be a full-time remote learning so that if if a family said you know what I'm not comfortable with returning to the building at this time I want to know more about that remote learning a lot of work has been done in that area that we will be talking with with talking about but there are essentially two options returning to the building with whatever schedule option is allowable based on the health and wellness at the time and schedule potentials here and or or remote learning that flexible option is the idea that I could start remotely I may decide at this moment I'm going to wait there's a lot of unknowns from me and my family I want to uh to not return to the building I want to start remotely but if at any point at any time that I decide you know what I want to reconsider that at the end at a quarter break we would want families to be able to to to transition back into the in-person option the other thing is is you could choose to start face to face and for any reason decide that for health related reason or for any other option you felt was best to transition into remote learning that that that's that choice so again we're looking at we're back in the building in person learning with whatever schedule is allowable and we have created every scenario potential so that whatever comes we're ready to go to remote learning to the best to the highest quality possible and the option to go whichever way needed so you're going to learn a little bit more about that tonight but families are going to have the ability to determine and to tell us what they want and tonight you're going to look here learn a little bit more about what those what uh what are the components of those options and what it looks like and the considerations that will help them make that decision and you'll also hear about to save some of the safety and health protocols that are part of of helping me decide if I feel comfortable with returning to school in person what will it look like what can you do and what what will happen in my child's classroom or on the school campus president kale are members of the board we also talked about lots of Hybrid models to where we'd bring 50 of the students in we have had lots of those discussions um and then as far as the aspect that we would even divide kids up by Alpha so brothers and sisters would go together and we wouldn't do like first third fifth and then second so we have had lots of those discussions but at this point in time the Arizona State Legislature does not have a funding mechanism to allow that to happen but should that change please note that those are also some things that we have talked about and taking into consideration um can you clarify something for make us earlier you said that um student counts wouldn't be wouldn't go down any less than two percent right that is correct Mr so in a sense I mean they are kind of allowing for a hybrid bottle I would say right I mean not in terms of of seat hours but in terms of funding I guess which is something all right never mind I don't want to Sidetrack us but there's I actually do what I do what you're saying and that would be a an option that I would like to explore further to be honest with you I hadn't thought of it in that direction Mr clever there is some proposed legislation also that needs to be considered that would more fully more fully allow for that option so the nice thing is is that it in in the absence of those things being finalized we have plans and have identified what that may look like so that we can adjust either way you will even hear tonight how that plans have been made in the event that we go back full time and we're back full time and if the state or or the governor were to close schools again what would our remote learning look like now with what we've learned in the event that that should happen so a lot of preparation for being Nimble being quick being flexible being versatile has been discussed and so we'll talk a little bit about that more Dr Foley yes quick little interjection on this slide yeah um so in these three different areas so so a teacher like a fifth grade team is teaching is it going to be one is going to be for depending on our numbers that one teacher would be the full time online T is that going to be the options because I think about teachers teaching in person and trying to run an online program that's a very good question and that was one of the main concerns family or our teacher group had and you'll hear a little bit more about it but but just to answer that question it'll be really important for the community to tell us their preference what do you want for your students so we can begin to utilize our staffing and our numbers to figure out how we're going to do that and what curriculum we have to do that one of the things you're also going to hear is that the the role of canvas is going to be integrated in across the board because I may be in the face-to-face model and one of the things we're going to really stress is that if you do not feel good you do not go to school today do you remember the poem from from Shel Silverstein the I cannot go to school today said little Peg again McKay who has the measles months ago the reaction you go like I couldn't do the whole poem I'll spare you but um but essentially the role of if your that filtering if I don't feel good I don't go to school but but I don't want you to fall behind so your ability to stay connected with what's happening in the classroom canvas is going to be a tool that we use and that will whether you are in the face-to-face or full remote online learning now as a teacher I'll be using that tool more but I won't be trying to teach my class face to face and teach online at the same time so again having the numbers so that we can staff accordingly and appropriately is going to be very very important so um that piece helps answer that and we'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like but again those scenarios are the parts and pieces that our core teams have been working through so talk about attendance letters one of the things that won't happen this year because this was a this came up in our parent survey now wait a minute y'all when we're gone too often you send letters that scare me and so one of the things that will be suspended this year is that letters for for we are not going to Auto generate letters to go home because that is going to be sending contradictory message what we need for you to do is to communicate with us so that we because we need to know if you are not well we need to know if you are not going to be out and and if it's for an extended period of time we will make sure that you can keep up and if it's going to be for an extended extended period of time we may work with you to transition you fully to to um remote only and so one of the things you'll find is that yes the auto dialer will still work we will still double check to make sure you've reported attendance because we need to do that but we we're going to be rolling out at the beginning of year a really nice app that will allow parents to quickly and easily if we know we're going to need to be home for a couple weeks I can report attendance all at once and we can track that so again things like traditional things like perfect attendance and those kind of things are contradictory to our new normal and so those are some of the transitions that we're going to be making in our processes so that our our Auto things don't continue to happen that way because that's that's not what not what's important um you're going to hear as we transition into this um we caution again everything we say today Canon will possibly shift and change and that's one of the reasons why our teams have been working to figure out what does this look like what how might this be so if it changes overnight we're not starting from scratch all over again but it's a lot of it's a lot of thought processes here so um you will be hearing from different groups we're going to start with or you're talking about the safety protocols we're going to talk about health and then we're going to go into the instructional model kind of pieces so you'll hear a little overview of all these know that there are volumes of documents and resources and materials that these groups have created that we've been reviewing um but that we're trying to streamline just kind of general gist here so that we can begin to give information to families about what we're preparing for school so um we are do not worry do not fear we are working really hard for for our community and for our students so that we provide the best quality education possible and options to the greatest extents possible so with that I'm delighted to turn this over for this portion to talk a little bit about the facility pieces with our new um director who who was introduced to beginning this is Felicia Malloy who we are delighted to have and Ben beholds good evening board president kaler and board members thank you for having me here tonight and look forward to working with all of you Manny and I were part of the task force for facility and custodial and what we have here is that we are offering increased cleaning with an emphasis on disinfect disinfecting and sanitation that would include additional custodial staff at each site that will be discussed a little bit later we've also discussed installing the Plexiglas barriers being installed at our campuses they're in process right now face Shields are being made available for our paraprofessionals our health aides and our bus aides enhanced procedures and processes would include that within the communal areas there would be a personal responsibility to have cleaning available just as we're demonstrating tonight with the hand sanitizer here playground equipment will be cleaned at more frequent intervals than they have in the past restrooms would be cleaned at least Midway through the day in addition to the usual cleaning training and professional development for all staff will be arranged currently we do have training for July 2nd for our summer school as you're aware summer school is tentatively set for July 6 for in person for the remainder of the staff custodial training will happen on July 8th and 9th ppes thermometers additional cleaning supplies are all stockpiled in the warehouse and additional items are currently being ordered we do have the installation of hand sanitizers going in stations at all School sites including the district office and we're currently ordering for all classrooms we also are investigating enhanced filters and other equipment that the teachers too will have face Shields not the teachers the teachers right now you know we're under the order with the masks so they would have those correct thank you yeah the face mask is for those that would have that intimate con contact with students just a quick interjection I apologize Felicia um there could be a possibility of face shields for teachers who need it as an accommodation because they do fall in that at-risk category or underlying conditions so you know as the facilities and maintenance team has worked with the rest of us we have decided and talked about ordering a large number of them just in case we have to make more available there's some of the teachers that have asked me this very question so I think some are interested in a face shield as well so thank you for into consideration I think one of the things that we are going to make obviously wouldn't be uh wouldn't be if you if you wanted it will be provided it wouldn't be automatically provided unless you wanted it but what you would provide whatever you felt you wanted that we could provide Dr Thomason I heard that during our work study you had disclosed how much hand sanitizer we bought I think this would be a great time for you to maybe share with our listening audience that may have not turned into our work study president Kayla members of the board we're reaching now close to a hundred thousand dollars in in PPE hand sanitizer and Equipment because it's it's not cheap and actually right now we looked at buying it in 55 gallon drums because we thought we could get a better price and so that we have a lot of hand sanitizer and PPE face Shields gloves cleaning equipment Clorox the warehouse is absolutely pallet after palette after palette of the sanitizers and cleaning equipment and supplies thank you okay the next slide talks about the specialized disinfecting equipment we have currently purchased a prototex handheld cordless electric static sprayer we have four of those available within the district we have also purchased the backpack cordless electrostatic sprayers we have two of those in the district and along with those sprayers we we have purchased the per tabs disinfecting sanitizing tabs that are used within the within that equipment we also are ordering several handhelds at this time so why are we not ordering enough for each school if you just mentioned two and we have how many schools 14 Schools somebody clue me in here a little bit here president Candler Mr rotovich we have a covet cleaning clear well Dr Fowler 11ly refers to as the Ghostbuster Squad and the booster Ghostbuster Squad comes through and they're able to sanitize and clean areas where we may have had a positive case or a potential in infected area and so they do come through so the the coveted cleaning cooler does have that equipment that's assigned to them but we will have other equipment that's available too to the sites quite honestly Mr otovich a lot of things are on back order right now and so as Things become more available we will get more equipment how quickly can they get through a school do we know Dr Fowler how quickly the Ghostbusters can get through with school and we've we've had a couple practice events previously and so we um when we practiced that the last time we were able to sanitize the campus within about an hour so if we had to there could be multiple campuses that they could come through pretty quickly yes yes thank you quick question so this crew that we're talking about you're going to be pulling this crew from other job these are these are district Personnel that that have assigned responsibilities but are are free to to be pulled if needed so it would be not from sites but District personnel great question thank you foreign Crosby coming in to talk a little bit more about what it will Transportation look like because that obviously is is a consideration and something that we want to share so I think Mr Crosby you're going to tell us we just bought 200 buses and 200 more bus drivers no you will not Park them all in right so president killer members of the board I am here to speak on the transportation committee and what our recommendations are but before I start with that if I can help answer maybe a question from the previous group because I did send a few subcommittees um Mr wichovic about the static sprayers that the district has those are a little bit more expensive and the the product that's used in them has a one minute kill time for covid there is a much more cost effective thing that I think our district is looking at with a five minute kill time and it's applied using a garden sprayer which is a lot more cost effective and I I don't want to speak for the others but I think it is what we'll probably be used more in the schools unless there's an outbreak yep um so with that I will discuss uh Transportation obviously um the six foot rule on a school bus is one that's very difficult to accommodate so our our committee did our best to uh ensure that the buses are safe not only for the students but as well as our employees we're going to start with signage on the buses that will remind students of healthy habits as well as what the symptoms are for the virus we will have hand sanitizer available on all the buses however it does need to be kept under the driver's control not readily available to the students but it will be on the bus and available if needed and the reason for that could you share why we're letting one having a driver hold it well the driver may not necessarily be holding it it'll be in under his control could you share maybe why yeah it is a flammable product and it is a I know exactly but I've had Parents ask me why aren't we letting it and I said kids will eat it and uh alcohol I think it's a good point to make sure that parents know the kids will eat it if they are by themselves so Mr Crosby just touch your microphone and when the red light goes on it's on I don't think you're on it's a green light now is that President uh the the microphones that are on the tables are a little bit different I will turn mine around so you can see the green light that's on when you're when it's on Just a Little Closer so we're also recommending um due to the air air conditioning systems on our school buses are by default 100 recirculated air throughout the bus that we do lower some of the windows on the bus to allow additional fresh air into the vehicle all of the buses will have the seats and handrails disinfected after each bus run and again that's using the product with a five minute kill rate using a garden type sprayer that would be applied to all the high touch areas in the seats masks are going to be required for the students drivers and aides or anyone else that is in the vehicle our special ed bus drivers and AIDS will be provided a face shield to use in addition to their mask when they're in close proximity to a student an example of that would be when they're securing a wheelchair or strapping them into a seat belt we will continue to have assigned seats on our buses and do everything we can to seat families together and students will still continue to scan their bus pass or school ID on and off of us lastly something that does benefit us at least this time of the year in Arizona is the virus does die at 133 degrees after 15 minutes so if we do Park our buses with the windows up they do get hotter than that and that's just a secondary benefit to doing that I'd be happy to answer any questions or provide any additional information Mr Crosby there was a small concern that with the windows up and the door shut and 133 degree bus what are our precautions we're taking to make sure we don't forget about a student on the bus a great question bus drivers are actually required to walk the bus after every run anyway and our buses in our Fleet are equipped with an electronic device to where if the driver turns off the ignition and exits the bus before they go to the back of the bus and push a button the bus horn starts honking and the lights flash so it alerts others in the yard so there is um very little risk that that could happen thank you for that Mr Crosby I just uh this is not a question I I know that your team has been over the past few months doing different work than what they were hired and signed on to do and uh they have passed out tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of meals and other things so I just I should have probably emailed you to say thanks for to your staff and to acknowledge um all those people that you know the best kind of people you know that pitch in and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done and they've shown up and uh accredited to your department president kaler members of the board if I may and Josh wouldn't want me to mention this but I think it's important yesterday Josh was part of a national call and was the school bus expert with over you know close to 2 000 people chiming in to hear about and learn about the things that that we're doing in Higley to keep students safe and and Josh is not only a leader in the state of Arizona but a leader as far as school transportation actually so we're we're very fortunate to have him and appreciate that that he does what he does so I just wanted to share that with the board as well that he was on a national call yesterday as an expert on school transportation the only one expert on school transportation thank you Mr Crosby for that that's awesome um a quick question so even on the bus if if our mask is lifted for Gilbert and Maricopa we are still going to have a mandatory mask rule on our buses is that what this is saying president Keeler members of the board it's going to be extremely highly recommended and requested because we cannot physical distance on the bus okay so I mean that's what's something we're going to is that the wording that we're yes okay yes so parents understand if they were just reading this that yeah absolutely highly I like your wording yes okay thank you so um it's requested you know that that all students at anybody when you cannot physically distance of six feet or more it would be highly encouraged and um requested that you wear a mask President Taylor um I just want to thank Mr Crosby I I don't think a lot of people know these cleaners you have had for what two years now so taking the health and safety of all of our students who ride our bus that has been a Forefront for you for several years we have taken certain precautions because our buses they're you're in close proximity so I want to thank you for that that you were already ahead of the game because that is important um for you and our drivers and our students so I just want to thank you for already working on that and it kind of makes this transition a little easier thank you I appreciate that yeah for a couple years we have been cleaning our buses not to this degree but we have been sanitizing them particularly during cold and flu season um mainly because there is a driver shortage and we want to keep our drivers healthy so then get the students to and from school so yeah we um we're pretty familiar with the disinfectant and the process that we need to do that's awesome I just want to say thank you because I didn't know that we were doing that as a board member even so I just want to say thank you because that is really really cool to know that we were already ahead of the game here um that helps parents to know like hey we are doing our part too so thank you you mentioned to keep our bus drivers healthy in this presentation this this evening is there going to be a section what human resources we'll be addressing so thanks okay we have our human resources will be coming shortly okay thank you yes thank you Mr Crosby along the theme of facilities will allowed Dr Fowler to talk about um this as well yeah we have we had a big area again I want to just reiterate thanks to all those members that were part of the six different task teams related to facilities and um you know there's just a lot of moving parts and uh in many ways of the two groups I'm talking about next are are are out there and and uh trying things out for us and uh and and being very successful so we have reopened limited rental opportunities um our renters are um having to follow very specific procedures and guidelines based on the CDC um which include new health screenings not just for the employees but also for the renters um our Community Education rental team is is checking on those and and and those renters um know that they have to follow those guidelines or their opportunity to rent would be removed we've also increased the sanity sanitation at those rentals before um after and in some cases during depending on the length of that and so there's a lot of work that's been done with our community rentals and uh the H the Higley Center for Performing Arts is is preparing as well and we'll have some more details about that facility as as that develops president Kayla members of the board we have had some unfortunate rentals where some of the uh the individuals running have not followed the rules and compliances that we have set in place during covid-19 and so you may hear from some of individuals that that have been denied rental opportunities because they could not follow some of the physical distancing and some of the practices that we have um it's been unfortunate but it's something that we wanted to do to keep our our staff and Community safe and I am 100 in supportive of that and finally from our group Athletics and activities we We are following the the AIA guidelines and the CDC guidelines checking and monitoring procedures are in place for the health of students sterilization of equipment and Facilities before and after and a process where we're not sharing personal equipment we're following the tiered stages that you've seen and currently the Athletics is at stage three which is allowing group training with physical distancing of no more than 50 students provided they can socially distance inside I believe that number is closer to 25 just because of the ability to do that and we're following closely with the AI guidelines and and we'll continue to monitor that and follow what the bigger group follows as well we're going to transition to start talking about health services so we have our district nurse Jillian Fulton here this evening to talk about the work she led with this group which is an essential group and crossed over all of us I mean there were crosses across all of these task forces talking and this is one that we relied in addition to facilities was the health and safety what does this look like and how are we going to implement that in our schools so she's here tonight to share a little bit of information and again more of this is going to be sent to families by the end of the week so that they can actually review this and see this for themselves president Kayla members of the board too I can't give enough kudos to to Julian our district nurse she does have some certifications and some some background and certificates that allow her to do some things that nobody else in the district can do and that is working with the Arizona Department of Health Services and Maricopa County apartment Health Services access to different things and able to make some of the phone calls and work with some of the the the HIPAA information that nobody else in in the district can do so we're very thankful to have her on our team don't have a degree in microphones okay good evening president members of the board our community everybody here tonight again I'm Jillian Fulton the district nurse for Higley Unified School District tonight I want to present some of the work to you that this health and safety task force has worked on as well as a wonderful Advisory board that we have that's put a lot of input into this work as well um the first slide here we're talking about a lot of education for families and that will include daily considerations to take we have a need to know section that will follow this right now we're looking at the husd daily family health screening expectations this is something that two this is twofold this will be sent home to families as an expectation that will be done at home this will also be posted in and around school for staff to reiterate to students and to talk about we have has your child experienced any of the following fever or new onset or worsening cough or shortness of breath or new loss of taste or smell or diarrhea or vomiting close contact with anyone who has exhibited any of the above symptoms close contact with anyone who has tested positive for covid-19 close contact is defined as having close within six feet in prolonged generally greater than 15 minutes contact with the covid-19 patient if the answer is yes to any of the above please keep your child at home and contact your school's Health office and again these will be available online as well for families in the community to access if you go you have a folder a gray folder and inside there is a letter and it starts with dear husd parents and Guardians and on the very top of that letter you'll see these daily considerations that I just went through and below that we have the need to know section those are things that we've recommended for families staying informed about covid-19 through resources such as CDC the Arizona Department of Health Services recognizing symptoms being aware what those are and knowing because sometimes we think we know what a cough is but the differences between do we have allergies or is that a new cough is that a new cuff from my child sounds different we're seeking medical advice by calling their health care facility making sure that they're following up and keeping that communication open practicing and reinforcing good hygiene at home washing our hands for longer than 20 seconds coughing into our elbow avoiding close contact I know we want to give all of our friends a hug but right now let's you know just talk to them from from that distance if your child is sick or needs to leave school suggestions for families is to keep your child home if they are sick please keep them home and we have contact your child School administration or the district nurse with any concern specifically related to covid-19 in your child's health consider planning for alternate Child Care Arrangements have a backup plan in place and please make sure all your contact information is always up to date so that we can reach you you know when we when we need to and that one is very important going back to the theme of individual responsibility there's going to be a culture shift on campus it's also student awareness of how important you are in being aware of how you're feeling and keeping yourself and others safe so awareness and ownership and and responsibility of health is an important piece that will not only be a home piece but an individual process and responsibility learning piece as well for all of our students foreign that you will have is the husd covid-19 exclusion guidelines this is a form that I developed with information from every Health government entity I can get my hands on right now and this is where we're at this form will be given to families when they are sent home if their student is sent home in the health office with any symptoms and this will guide them to facilitate coming back to school if a family is given this form I will know I will have contact with them my health aide at that school that triangle we will know we'll be communicating where they're at what they've done if they've seen their doctor yet if they were tested how many days ago and this will be a ongoing system to make sure that they can come back when when they're healthy and able to do so ask a quick question on that slide um with the negative or the covid-19 diagnosis with the negative lab test results that we say they have to have at least two negatives within or at least 24 hours apart or 10 days um the amount of time it's taking right now to get test results that 10 days is going to come before they could get two negative test results and so is that is that something that we're going to continue to look at um I mean right now they're taking literally between seven to ten days to get one back and if they're having to do two um they're going to it's going to be longer than the 10 days yes Mysteries you're right and and I think as I look at all the guidelines every day to match up that we're still on the same line and and it's grown from three to five days we've gone from five to seven and now we're at seven to ten so I think that will grow and we're going to have to adjust with that and and that's going to be on that it was going to be adjusted and that's what we're going to do because I certainly wouldn't keep it at 10 right and then they're not getting there then they think we don't have the updated information so I'll keep changing as we go it's very fluid but every single day I check all of those guidelines to see where we're at and make sure we're still on those numbers perfect I just yeah I hear you it all it changes every day and at one point you used to be able to get your results within 24 hours and now it it's just increased so and I don't know where it's going to go from there but thank you to the point of ongoing monitoring monitoring of data the number of cases you know again having a point person that's monitoring all that so that we can adjust accordingly and respond appropriately as an essential component of the health and safety pieces that that have been part of this protocol that we're working through and one quick question on the health and safety part as well can we look to have a specific identifiable place on our website that parents can go like they don't have to go look for it they can click and say this is my covid-19 health and safety where we can get this information right away and not have to navigate through our entire website trying to find it president will definitely put something on our front page to go to for covid-19 information so right at the beginning they'll know where to go for information on on health and safety precautions and where they can find we're also want to make sure that we communicate very heavily with our parents and Community about the symptoms and signs to not send students home or students to school if they have some some of the um causes of cover 19.

There is no presentation. There will continue with action items from the letter to the proposition, analysis, and the results of the Board of Education's operation. It is a motion that you agree with the discussion. Everything in general will be discussed. There will be some changes that the employee meetings this year will address. Everything that is in the proposition, say yes. Is the motion complete? The proposition of letter B. Ah, calendar review. The Board of Education approves the calendar for the year 2020-2021. Do you agree? Yes, no? Uh, the second one who supports it, Jon, so the calendar review. All those who are in favor. Say yes, someone who opposes it. Not everything is about emotion. Proposition C is correct. They are making the emotion of the teacher evaluation plan. The Board of Education approves the teacher evaluation plan. According to the mention of CONATE, Emi supports it.

2021 someone who gave second for her supports the proposition everyone in favor of the proposition are going to make the call chit Says that Lauren says that s says that says that s Richard is unanimous the emotion passes the proposition AF the Board of Education accepts the employee salaries as recommended as it is recommended someone who is second emy emy any questions Yes no everyone in favor that please has called ropo a the motion passes the proposition G the Board of Education approves and establishes the 2020-2021 budget an amount of 135,686 the 9% in position is accepted question Who has the second supports it Katy supports it wants to thank for all the work that has been done to kateo it is a good presentation and wants to thank that with lasas I want to thank also this is this is included Ah they want to see if the other 10 million are included they want to see regarding that and and and have other questions they are also asking questions to see how these are given Ah the specialists for the special students of Kindergarten through fifth grade want to know who provides support. The children are being explained how it will be done in September.

Sauer just mentioned we we reached out to ed advanced as soon as we were made aware that the commissioner and the governor will be updating us with something more formal we now anticipate that there's going to be considerable flexibility for districts and so get given that anticipation we requested ed advance and they did an amazing job facilitating the initial workshops on this and then they they they stopped the meeting is waiting for something formal to come out from the governor's office so you might recall it was almost a month ago there was a Friday we were expecting something official coming out from the office we're still waiting for that for that information and now it appears it's going to be coming something was going to be shared with us momentarily and so the thought is the the school district that are part of the ED advance region they will be reconvened so we can revisit at advances has developed a template for all the districts to use and so you know some of the mitigation strategies that the various subcommittees and I have developed will be literally cutting and pasting and putting those strategies in that template but they but-but-but the big the big work is determining how we're going to reopen schools um and then all of the other strategies will follow and so we have a work cut out for us certainly moving forward but as Sal mentioned earlier we want to be we don't necessarily have to be lockstep with our neighboring districts but I do think we want to all be on the same page given that we have our power you know a lot of our staff in neighboring towns and then those staff of course will need to be available if they're gonna come to work here in Danbury so we're hoping we can help each other out in this work any questions before I move on some school update Cara and Kelley or Kevin okay yeah I can start so just just an update for the board you know with everything going on of course schools continues to move forward and so we have to we've appointed two people in charge of k5 summer school they've done an amazing job and as you might imagine academic focus has had to change considerably given that we're going online so Carol on top of you know literally changing everything that we've had to do k12 had to do it again for summer school and so we have a delivery in place and summer school regular summer school k5 will July 6 and that will that will go throughout this summer into July 30th for for grades 6 8 & 9 12 will also be from July 6 to July 30th the times will be Monday through Thursday from 8 from from 8 to 11 for the a.m.

Conte already has been who he's been just terrific about working out the details up in Hartford along with the rest of the the contingent to up there if they're going to make some changes so Carrie would you want to just briefly talk about it sure so we did have an opportunity to go back up to the to the summit keep wanting to call the matrix but it's it's been renamed so if I say matrix just you know I mean the summit so and you know just to look at the space we you know like many of you we did get a chance to see some of the some of the plans behind there it seems to be very exciting I think you know the first hurdle is to make sure that the project itself can go through when I went up to Hartford it I think perhaps my my I visit with them may have been a little premature and talking about the different pathway and all the things we're excited about the programming piece which I think you know we really have to spend more time thinking through and vetting and working with the high school and district administration to make sure that we are actually fulfilling the you know the right pathways in not only just at that location but at Danbury high school as well because it's not just a singular program that would be at the summit it would be part of a complementary program under Granberry high school that would include multiple pathways and then one of the one or two of those pathways pathways would exist in the Academy in that location so so the visit in Hartford was really more along the lines of the logistics of the project itself the nuts and bolts and whether or not the ideas of how they are going to position that building for reimbursement would would be possible you know the ways that you know to be explored and I think that there's legislation that actually has to be changed in order for that to happen so there are some definite hurdles there to to overcome before you know we start developing out you know the programming that goes in there so basically we need to own that building for them you know I think would be a cleaner transaction and so they're looking at details on how to to do that this is an unusual approach usually they build from the ground up they dig and build the entire project and so this is a building and would be buying an existing structure and then refurbishing it and then getting approval for reimbursement and that just hasn't been done they face talk about you know fifteen or sixteen checkboxes on the sheet and and that doesn't exist on that sheet and so how did how to get around that and how to navigate that and work with some area folks to get that done so there's a few hurdles to to happen but certainly the project is exciting I'm hoping and hopeful that it would go forward and once that happens again we'll be working more collaboratively to make sure that you know what we what we do put there in terms of programming fits some of the visions that we've been speaking about you could be assured that it's probably long of the stem lines you know we've done our homework and research with the Northwest Regional workforce board the types of programs that are in demand right now in this area in this catchment are architecture construction finance health science information technology and high-tech manufacturing so you know we'd be looking along pathways along the lines of those pathways but and also understanding all of the tenants who are over in in the building per se we've heard some exciting tenants that are there now there are some exciting tenants that are coming in and so how do you utilize the resources in our backyard and that would be just down the hall to help build the program help to support a program and maybe even to help fund a program and so there's there would be a lot of work involved in getting sort of those potential ideas and so we're starting to explore those now but the first phase is getting that project approved and moving it forward before we can get to the they're really fun stuff so so so for the board you know we've been chatting about what what it would be and we've kind of come along giving parents choices that's been a focus of ours as a as a district where we could where we can and I e you have a is which is an inter it's a inner district which means outside students as well it for inside programming of course we have the the program at the high school the early college the freshman school all participate in that you've got culinary you've got nurses by choice you know the board when when Westside open we made it made it to academies just respecting that if there's an interest on a family to enter into it so the idea has been do we do we propagate that do we permit more choice for parents the view has been in my view yes we'd like to do that while we not only solve a space problem but you know not solved but but enhanced the Challenge that the state has put before all of us are you preparing youngsters for the workforce are they the proper areas will they be certified and are they not just dead-end jobs and this is what we're talking about is why we went to Nashville to see how they did it and so I guess to the board I just want you to know that when you when this ketamine is coming together it has to be with your collaboration of what we want to do that because you could simply say let's just have another six new drug Andry district and put everybody up there and make it really simple well it won't be that simple but you know we could do that but and I just I was saying the Jo and an email that I think there needs to be some board conversations I'm certainly looking at this as another supporting magnet school for parent choice I'm looking at this as a alternative to a normal bath way up at the high school so those are you know some things that I think you should have at least some did some thinking from our board that's different I think it needs to come out and not feel as though you haven't participated I think that's the last thing needs to happen we said to the town we need space they're going to give us face what we put in that space would be what we do so I just I'm just respectfully putting it out there because one things you would expect this to start to do is to start looking at we have researching careers and start putting things together that will be operationalizing to Ed specs that you would have to approve otherwise it doesn't get done so I don't know whose if Jo the Britain has any comments but this would be a good time hand up for a while oh I didn't see that got a lot of people on here so I just wanted to jump in real quick and I don't know you know who the best person is to answer this question dr.

but and they also so they get General leave and then they have this so but the general leave is paid out at a different a very different rate yes and so our general leave policy is separate of this and it only paid out for individuals who've been with the district for a minimum of eight years they have to notify Us by X date um and for our individuals that are certified it's paid at the substitute rate and a percentage of the substitute rate and it um it's a sliding scale So based on the number of hours that you have within General leave it starts off with paying out a 25 rate and then it goes all the way up to 100 of the substitute scale which is currently 100 a day um if it meets those criteria and if they have that much time um so much different and then in terms of our classified individuals it's also paid out at a sliding scale but not at a substitute rate but at their hourly rate yeah so okay I'm not speaking against this I'm going to vote in favor of this for sure because same things that I say you've earned the days we should pay people for the days that they've earned and not not pay them if they don't use them so but I think there it's so sloppy and messy when you have these different days and different rates and I mean my inclination would be I would be sick more than I would use vacation so that I would put them to the side so it's it is a little messy I think there's an opportunity no other school districts probably do do this but there's an opportunity to maybe pay the more for the general leave and reduce a little for the vacation something that's more fair that promotes people to be at work take care of their health when they need to and take the vacation breaks that they need to but that's years away from doing that but it's just I'll slide it in there for us someday maybe if you you know when you have nothing better to do to work on that when Mrs Martin's is Bored thank you I look forward to that day thank you any other comments or questions president killer I guess the same thing applies I I have some concerns and I hear you Mr Glover but also our conversation at our previous meeting really need to work on the work-life balance and and I'm a big proponent of that if you have it schedule it take it enjoy it obviously this past year is different and I recognize that and that we do um we do have a payout I I just don't know about the the increase okay we're going to vote all those in favor uh those opposed motion carries three two okay we're gonna move on to 6.6 and I move that the governing board approves the sole source procurement from the vendors listed for the fiscal year 2020 to 2021. a second questions comments concerns all those in favor aye motion carries five zero 6.7 I make a motion that the governing board approves payment of 5720 for hcpa to the Arizona Dance Sport Inc from 2018 to 2019 fiscal year Dr Thomason do you have that information of why we're doing this president Kayla members of the board I'll refer to Dr or Mr Holland on the information on the the procurement foreign so Mr Zucker came to me um last week and there was a PO in place for for dance last school year at the end of the year um Mr Zucker had contacted Lisa bate and it mentioned that the box office did not utilize um I mean the company didn't utilize the box office that the PO could be closed however um had forgotten that the box office had been used and that the bill had come in but the bill got overlooked and so they recently called him a couple of weeks ago and said hey we've never gotten our payment I'm not sure why they didn't call months and months before now um and so that's when he came to me and said okay I have a bill here from last year that there was um some misunderstanding and so we now need to pay this vendor very good thank you I know things can get overlooked occasionally so we'll give Mr Zucker a pass just a quick question on that this indicates it's the 2018-19 physical year 1819 bill we have to pay in 1920.

it's not the word I'm looking for some of the symptoms because right now it's also really hard it's a lot of it is Strep throat headaches well fever strep throat or fever sore throat headaches most of the time equals strep throat which they shouldn't be at school with either but it's how do we identify and not panic anybody one of the things that will be part of the communication that goes to families at the end of the week are linked in the letter will be links to these things that are going to go right to that same web page where we'll go back to so that way they'll be able to see it it's on the website and we'll be linking it in the letter Foley I think this is like fantastic um I think the absentee part of this where you earlier in the presentation where you you know put that first and eased our minds with that that's great because before when you had a little kid you know kindergarteners pick up colds yep you can't keep them normally home for 10 days for a cold so you have to tell them sometimes to Buck up and it's time to go to school if they're not running a fever if they're not experiencing some of those other symptoms so to see that piece first was so helpful now to see this um now and know that you know they're all connected and that we don't want our kids coming to school with just a cold either we want them to stay home stay healthy even if it's just a cold for those 10 days it sounds like the message we're sending and it's a very broad message stay home if you don't feel well and I really like the way you've put this I like the presentation you've put together I like the order you've put it in it just makes it very easy for me as a parent to know you know a little guy they're sick they're running a fever or not a fever they're running a no runny nose and maybe a cough normally you would send them to school with that right like most parents that's a normal thing okay well you got a cold move on now it's keeping them home so I just appreciate that thank you Dr Foley I want to compliment Julian for working very closely with all the district nurses and the surrounding districts to make sure she's on par they trade ideas they go back and forth and I think right now more than ever we need we need colleagues that understand things in the way we do she's worked she's not even supposed to be working this summer and it's like every day she's here we need our nurses now more than ever so thank you so much in keilar vice president Reese members of the governing board good evening again as well as our community members our employees and our families that are out there listening you're going to hear a common theme tonight as it relates to thinking everybody and all their hard work that they've been doing and I want to reiterate that because I don't think the amount of times that we talk about it tonight will do it any justice in the bigger picture so I wanted to start off with that first um and I'll have another opportunity to talk a little bit more about some of those Human Resources things Mr rutovich that you're concerned about later so we'll discuss through that but I worked with Miss Fulton in regards to you know how do we identify or what do we do when there is a positive case response and we'll talk about the flowcharts your next um in a minute but what we also want to talk about is Miss Fulton mentioned is that we're getting guidance from all across we're getting guidance from CDC we're getting guidance from the Arizona Department of Health Services we're getting guidance from the Maricopa County um so we have to assess what are we using when do we use and sometimes they reference one another and sometimes their information is slightly different um and uh as NIS Fulton mentioned she's checking it every day because we actually have seen changes um from last week to Monday to today so those are dynamics that are happening too as this is fluid the language that we're using and ever evolving in the bigger picture but as we talk and move forward we are going to reference the Arizona Department of Health Services quite often because in terms of reporting if there is a positive case as a district we need to report that as well as Ms Fulton as the nurse will be able to get information to confirm cases and that will be important as we talk a little bit more throughout this presentation today so um as as Mr pardon me Dr Fowler mentioned earlier in regards to a response team we're utilizing individuals from The District in regards to individuals who are going to pull that have been part of other cleaning sanitizing methods in the past but to focus specifically on covid if there's a need that needs to be activated and we'll make sure that we go to those sites ASAP I know we've seen mixed guidance in relation to the fact that you know wait 24 hours before going to that spot hit the other spots first then go back to that spot but in terms of and I'm using the word reasonable you'll also hear some of my colleagues use the term comfortable today I chose to use the word reasonable and we talked a little bit about that because what somebody's comfortability is not somebody else's comfortability so we have to figure out as a district what is what what can we reasonably do with all of our items equipment resources that we have and the bigger picture and hopefully individuals understanding we're doing our best in that process so as we go and move forward to the next slide um you'll see a flow chart in relation to if there is a positive covid-19 case how will we address that in the bigger picture so you'll see on the top it'll either be Miss Fulton or myself who received the information and we could receive that information in multiple ways um you know we could receive it as a direct report from an employee or from a family member and or we may receive it through other information the important part is how we communicate that out and how do we affirm that once we get that information so you'll see in terms of that flowchart in the the large umbrella is that if it's an employee it'll get directed to Human Resources if it's a student it'll get directed to the district nurse but we want to make sure that everybody's involved from the site administrators to cabinet and certainly to support services to make sure that we can go out there and get things sanitized our next step and what will be important is that we address the Arizona Department of Health to confirm and we think it's important that's only one point of contact and Ms Fulton has had a lot of contact with the Arizona Department of Health Services to this point so we want to continue to have her be our resource and that there isn't any confusion in the bigger picture and then depending on what we hear from the Arizona Department of Health and what they say we will then notify individuals as appropriate um we're working on behind the scenes additional letters and information you know as Dr Foley mentioned earlier and showed we have lots of different subgroups in the HR subgroup is working just as hard and diligently as all the other subgroups and a lot of that stuff are behind the scene things that we aren't going to go into detail today but we have ready for our administrators to help them understand our process our procedures help them understand how to respond to questions or concerns that come directed to them and to respond in a manner that's consistent or as consistent as possible as well as is going to be for lack of a better word appropriate and I say that because you know you heard Dr Thomason earlier talk a little bit about HIPAA so we have HIPAA we have FERPA we have Ada we have FMLA so we have lots of other compliance things that existed before covid and that still exist um so we have to make sure and we'll talk a little bit more about that in the HR piece is that we do the correct training for our employees and individuals as we are communicating um and I have said this before and I'm gonna take the risk and say this tonight um you know I'm scared this is a big deal and we probably won't get it right the first time but our goal just like with anything else is that you learn from the first time or the second time and you do better and you do better in every which way you can so we'll always make sure that we're touching base as a cabinet and a leadership team as well as with our administrators at the various sites to learn and to do better for all individuals involved our employees as well as our families and our students we'll also want to make sure can I sorry to interrupt you is this the time to ask you in reference to how are you as the HR Director addressing our employees that are high risk older employees and things like that I mean what's what do you have in this flow chart for coming back to school when you have older employees you have you know some health conditions I mean where is this conversation coming in to protect our employees before we even open up here that is a good question Mr vertovich and we are going to cover that a little bit later in terms of the information that we got as Mr lotzenheiser mentioned in terms of the employee survey you'll see common themes of concerns from our employees so we'll address that a little bit more at that point which is wasn't it's not too much further in terms of the presentation the question is the flowchart here why don't we have a gatekeeper you know and I see you're at the top HR director and District nurse this is a big school district you have a lot of things going on and when something happens that needs to jump into place why don't we have a gatekeeper that steps in and says okay the classroom teacher has been notified this is taking place this form is done you know kind of orchestrates everything that needs to be done because you're wonderful but you get a lot of things going on here and we really need somebody that steps up to the plate and brings us all together because if there is a positive in the classroom there needs to be somebody who orchestrates this gets the communication properly to all the families that they from that classroom make sure that teacher I guess the other question maybe later or now um if we're going to quarantine that you know that teacher say okay you're going to be off for two weeks are they gonna have to use their own sick pay you know I mean that those are some of the questions I either either you're going to address it now or if it's somewhere farther down the conversation but I personally would be more comfortable with some type of gatekeeper here that brings all this together to make sure everything's in place because you're wonderful but but you know if you get one or one or two cases here in the district how are we going to I'm sure I can help answer that question before um when we we had Julian here we said she had some specialized licenses and certificate certifications so one of those certifications and licenses allow her to be able to contact the Arizona Department of Health Services in Maricopa County department of health services so what we want to be careful of is to make sure we don't get a bunch of rumor and speculation with her certifications and licenses she's able to call and confirm positive covid cases and so that's why Julian is the nurse that has to confirm that for us instead of someone just reading it on the Internet or someone saying that I have it unless there's some kind of paperwork and she has to be that filtering Center so we don't break HIPAA loss and so she's able to contact those those County and State offices to make sure that we have a positive coveted case after that I hear you 100 and then it needs to be disseminated out and a proper chain of command so who will be the person the just the nurse at each one of those schools I mean who's going to be after a positive confirmation then it goes to to the cabinet and disseminate it out appropriately depending whether it's an elementary school a middle school high school if it's operations it just depends on where and how the the situation is is laid out because it could go several different directions so why wouldn't it be good idea to have a person of contact at each one of our campuses that has procedures what takes place and so cabinet contacts them then everything falls into place here I mean it just needs to be on each School needs to have a person who seems to be coordinated yes well first thank you for your kind words earlier I appreciate it um but I would say we kind of have two Gatekeepers to answer your question we will have the site administrator specifically the site principal who will be the one who will coordinate at that site or if it's a departmental issue for example Transportation will have Mr Crosby as the transportation director that's where you see that site administrator and and as Dr Thomason mentioned Miss Fulton will be the communicator who will be that second gatekeeper with keeping all of the information but the reality is we all have little different pieces to it but I would say if I had to answer your question the best I could um it's definitely the site principle or the administrator of the department and Miss Fulton there are two large Gatekeepers that are going to help us keep everything together communicate as necessary and later we're going to talk a little bit more about training in terms of our next steps I alluded a little bit to that earlier and we'll have all of that step in process for them too and I will talk more later I think it's appropriate later when you see the themes of our concerns of our employees in regards to talking about the family's first coronavirus response act FMLA Ada and the resources that are there for our employees if something to happen them directly or somebody they have to care for within their household and what options there are there um just one brief thing before we move on to the next slide and that's primarily that um we are going to keep the board informed so as Dr Thomason continues with his superintendent reports we'll make sure that we give you um General numbers and information again as we talked about in terms of the compliance we'll never talk about an individual's name um sometimes the reality is uh individuals can figure that out just by self-selection but it's important and part of that training process as we said we will never confirm an individual whether it's a student or an employee we will just talk generally about those cases and make sure people are aware as a part of the process Mrs Martins and Dr Thomason I guess this is a good time to bring it up too that it's really important for our community to not be posting [Music] um things that are not completely concrete truth because that's going to send us into an absolute Spin and I know that you know kids are kids and there's some community members that are maybe more nosy than other community members or whatnot but it's really important that anything posted on social media that we see in neighborhood um pages and whatnot is facts and not hearsay so I just want to kind of throw that out there it's really important because I think I did send Dr Thomas into a spin over the weekend and and you know we just need to be cognizant of that absolutely um just as you mentioned earlier related to another agenda topic you know it can be a love-hate relationship with social media a lot of things are Nation or population has benefited from and a lot of things I think we've digressed in um in the bigger picture but uh rumbling rumor control whatever you want to call it will need to be addressed in the bigger picture and what I hope is that everyone is going to give each other Grace and they'll take a moment to pause before saying something or before reporting something that they don't know the answer to and that's all we could ask for you know I think there's been a lot of campaigning through this process in regards to just kindness and what that means and I know the town of Gilbert has that as one of their mottos and I think we can as community members ourselves and as employees and support individuals just promote that in the bigger picture also so in terms of the next slide something that we learned about just on Monday in regards to the Arizona Department of Health Services is this no shirt of primary contact and secondary contact for those of us who remember some individuals who are listening might remember too the whole concept of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and what that means right um so the Arizona Department of Health Services has a hotline on an individual who has questions or believe they've been exposed or believed that they were a contact can call that hotline and that hotline will give them guidance and this particularly is going to matter for us because of the fact that we're going to have individuals as our state as our city as people travel more and reopen as Dr Foley Dr Thompson many other of my colleagues have said it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when and so when the when occurs how do we manage it in a way that we can still will continue procedurally with the things that we have to do to maintain our district especially if there aren't any larger State directives that come as well as being able to manage our employees in that process too and our students so one of the items that the Arizona Department of Health Services mentioned is that this primary contact so you're an individual who was in contact with somebody to have a confirmed coveted case and they're saying that you have to self-isolate for a minimum of five days if you have no symptoms and so we'll put on there to contact human resources and then there's this notion of secondary conduct a pardon me secondary contact from the Arizona Department of Health Services and that recommendation is that if you were in secondary contact and you show no symptoms you can continue to be in your workplace you just have to practice good hygiene and that's the hand washing the wearing the mass the physical distancing on the same time hand sanitizing if the washing is not available and we gave a specific example and this is going to happen where if there's a member of my household who was exposed to somebody at their place of employment with a confirmed coveted case and they were advised to self-isolate home I'm around them what do I do and I actually called the hotline number again today to make sure that the guidance was the same and the guidance says if you're a secondary conduct pardon me contact you may return to work again with the good hygiene practices so that's a new piece of information that we made sure to add to our FAQs that will be going out to our community so they have that knowledge in this process President Kelly members of the board we know that one of the most controversial issues we have going on right now is Mask two masks are not to masks So currently we're all required to mass due to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors requirements for masking um the other issue that we may have is that we live in a school district that is in three municipalities Mesa Gilbert and Queen Creek we know that before Friday um before before Maricopa came out with their with their um regulations that Queen Creek in Gilbert were not on the same page but we want to let you know that the district is one Higley Unified School District and uh if Gilbert requires us to mask we will mask okay so that's just one thing that I wanted to make sure that that we're aware of and get out there and even if we're not required to mask by the town of Gilbert's or the town of Queen Creek or the Maricopa County um Maricopa County then uh it would always be highly encouraged and um and requested so um administratively requested and highly encouraged to wear a mask if you cannot physically distance uh six feet or more and so we want to make sure we continue that that song and dance just to keep our community safe Dr Thomason please continue on that because it's of the utmost importance for our staff you know if families choose not to have a mass but please it's it's up to you know be safe for our staff here okay absolutely absolutely but we also want to make sure that that we do it with the utmost care and compassion too we we recognize that there are a lot of people in a lot of different areas and so um we will continue to highly encourage and and request that they wear masks we know that within our school district that physical distancing uh will not always be possible it's just it's just something that's not going to happen if you're currently going to the grocery store or Costco or Walmart it's not happening in those places either and so we know as a school district if you're expecting that from from the Higgin Unified School District I think that would be impossible to say that we would have a physical distance of six feet between students or staff at this time and we just wanted to make sure we put that out there but we do have the safety and sanitations increased cleaning supplies and protocols throughout the district our warehouse is full and and then you know we have the universal District wide health and safety signage that's going up at all our schools we will have the the six foot um markers at lrs schools we're going to have signage at all of our schools at all the doors when you come in there'll be the health and safety protocols they'll be the training videos that we have for staff and students and we'll continue to to clear and consistent communication with our communities and let them know what those Protocols are and we don't want to just train our students we want to train our community for the health and safety of everybody and so we will continue doing all of that within the Unified School District thank you for that I know that in the community that I've that I've heard a lot of things is talking about mask shaming and how we need to also educate our students that that will not be tolerated in Higley Unified School District whether you are wearing a mask or not are your families choosing to not wear a mask that is not going to be tolerated in our schools and I know that that is a concern for many of our parents and children and so I want to make sure that we address that um in this conversation of of masks president Kaylor members of the board we want to to allow all of our community all of our students all our parents and we understand that everyone's in a different spot even though from the the district standpoint we want to highly encourage and request the mass we know that some people aren't there and we still accept them as part of our Higley community and Higley family and and do Education and Training with everybody but we know that everyone's in a different spot we cannot judge others we don't know if they're at home with an 85 year old grandparents we don't know if they have a health or safety a risk that that is not visible to us they can have asthma they can have diabetes they could have underlying health immunity issues so we need to to very respectfully care for their choices to wear masks you know it's going to be you know interesting topic because as I said earlier if in reference to the mask if you have a teacher that's a high risk and um you know and you have some students that just don't want to wear masks just because I know we're going to have to cross that bridge in reference to that because it's it's about the safety and and as I've said as a family who has a coved Survivor our perspective my perspective is entirely different than these other people that think that they don't need to wear a mask at somebody else's but if they were a family who of a Survivor their opinion would be totally different and that goes back to my whole thing in reference to peanut allergies when you have a classroom and you might have a child in a classroom that is allergic to peanuts we don't have peanuts in that classroom so I mean we we come together as a community to to get through this with kindness so that's for another day another topic but you understand where I'm coming from on this so um I reference this so and Mr watovich I totally respect that and I know where you've come from and I know it's been a difficult Road and yet we do live in a community that there's many people that are very anti-mask and they and they are very adamant that they will not send their child back to school and so you've got those kids that are going to have that influence and so we need to make sure that we are caring for all of our students like I said in The Mask shaming either way um it just can't be tolerated because I don't think our kids our kids aren't going to be able to I understand that part too but it's also our responsibility to keep our staff safe too we have teachers I mean we have to look out for our teachers on this it's not about I'm going to wear a mask or not to wear a mask but if I have a teacher that has some health conditions and has a family member that's 90 years old I mean we can we can discuss this later with the superintendent not tonight but but that's my concern okay and I get it and I totally understand that you don't want to wear a mask but I'm talking about a teacher that has some health issues and because somebody has this little attitude Okay and like I said I'm a totally different perspective because I have a family survivor so my perspective is totally different on this so but we have this conversation later on that thank you one of the most important things that we haven't discussed yet and that is the education of our students so right now we're going to transfer to something a little bit different we know we've been talking about a lot of health issues a lot of safety issues a lot of precautionary issues but what are we we are an educational institution it seems like in a lot of areas we've forgotten about that so I'm very proud to turn it over to some of our educational experts and so at this time we're going to turn it over to take a look at our elementary model task force go ahead Dr Foley we're excited to have this part because again going back to you mentioned it earlier with when we survey families they want to have an understanding with this information what decision do I make and so for for we're going to transition to talk what does the elementary model look like that we are as we transition back and prepare for starting school so a lot of work has been done at the elementary and secondary level and we're going to have Jeff fickle from Bridges and Kelly papke from Cortina who were the co-chairs of this group share the work and provide some information at this time I'm gonna move this closer because I tend to have a softer voice uh good evening president Kaylor members of the board cabinet uh thank you for allowing us to be here this evening uh as Dr Foley mentioned uh Jeff and I had the opportunity to co-chair the instructional task force and one of the things that I think was a great uh aspect of this team is that the members of our committee consisted of a variety a diverse group of people so we had teachers as members we had instructional coaches assistant principals principals and so this allowed us to as we were looking at the three models that you'll see up there it allowed us to view each of those models through different perspectives and lenses from the various aspects of people who are in the building and so with that being said uh our number one task with our group was to establish Norms that unleash that creativity because we had some fantastic Minds on our team we had 14 people and uh we wanted them to know that everybody's voice counts everybody everybody's voice matters and in reality we have three blank slates that we need to paint we need to paint a clear picture of what each reality looks like um if we were to go down that road and so we put a lot of time and effort and energy into this aside from creating the documents there was a lot of research a lot of reading a lot of familiarizing ourselves with the Ade documents and the different models that different states are putting out different districts are putting out in our state um and so again there were a lot of hours and immense amount of time that was that was put into this and we're very thankful for our team members in doing so and so um within the three models we looked at ideas for implementation based on scheduling arrival and dismissal transitions lunch and breakfast what does inside the classroom look like recess specials parent communication remote learning and emergency drills and procedures and so aside from the implementation we also had a column for further considerations and questions because the reality is like it's been mentioned multiple times today this is going to be a fluid working document as we approach the start of the school year we've laid a lot of good groundwork in front of us though that we can work off of um but there's definitely still a lot of work to do so the beauty of this work is no matter what happens mid-year things are changing rapidly but if if we need to flip on a dime we can we have the ability to run down a different path if needed with some thoughts laid out and so with that let's transition to the next slide so these next pieces that you're going to look at this is um going to give you a glimpse and a summary it kind of highlights the key elements for each of the models so the in-person learning I know there's a lot of bullet points there we looked at kind of going from the beginning of the day as Jeff had mentioned all the way through you know what are all of the pieces to consider the logistics to consider within that so starting with the in-person learning model this would be the most typical day that students are used to it would be a five-day week with our Wednesdays you know being early dismissal um as we've talked a lot about this evening we would have those preventative safety protocols in place this would begin not just with our cleaning our custodial staff and and all of that but as was mentioned with the masks and the awareness of different situations that people have at home um you know we are going to be teaching our students what those Protocols are going to look like as far as distancing goes as far as hand washing you know material usage and all of those pieces so teachers normally at the beginning of the year spend that first week very heavily teaching procedures and routines and things like that so this will be encompassed within those process processes I'm assuming some social emotional will be happening there too with just coming back from such a long break I think we'll call it an extended break at this point but there will be some nervousness and some fear and that I don't are our teachers ready and trained and know how to do that and thank you for mentioning that um Miss Wilson that is actually something that um is addressed in the model here we have recognized with everything going on with the time away from school and all of the things going on in our world um the need for that social emotional learning component and so we are in the process of looking at some different programs to incorporate which I'm sorry to interrupt no years and I didn't get it on that the slide is very small and it is there's a lot I'm learning at all but it is very like I'm definitely moving my fingers and pinching so thank you for addressing it and pointing out exactly where I missed it so thank you okay and then um we looked also our our committee looked at um modifying our processes for arrival and dismissal and so in order to prevent large numbers of students from congregating together and having that co-mingling in contact we discussed having students when they arrive to school reporting directly to their classrooms um which would be a different process than what they're used to our dismissal processes would vary from school to school just because of the structures and how many buses and all of that but those are things that as administrators we will be working together to discuss and figure out what that's going to look like on our campuses whether it be a staggered dismissal or family groups going at you know certain times and so those are processes that are still being discussed and then as far as our classrooms the social distancing we are going to provide that distancing as much as possible we have uh looking at different classroom structures there are going to be probably pieces of furniture that we're going to have to get creative in order to make sure that we are distancing students as much as possible so whether that be removing furniture that isn't necessary at the time temporarily taking that out in order to be able to allow for that distancing to occur within the classroom we also are as we talked about you know we're here to educate students and so we are going to have that Focus that instruction will be in the core content areas um with a focus on those essential standards to make sure that our students are mastering those essential standards along with realizing that in quarter four we had a totally different learning environment and so we are going to address those gaps that are going to be present from that fourth quarter and then as mentioned that social emotional support will be provided to students and as you'll see with the online portion we are going to be as Dr Foley had mentioned for those families who are choosing to remain at home for the time being that learning learning opportunities will be provided to them distancing processes will be in place for our breakfast all our meal services so our breakfast and our lunch as well as recess and Transitions and so we will have in our cafeterias markers so that students know where you know if they're waiting in line for their food or to get into you know different areas of the campus they'll have markers where they they know where to stand our cafeteria as far as lunch goes the benches will be facing in One Direction we'll have students spaced out we depending on the campus you know we have some schools where it's you know multi-purpose room is used for both lunch and or PE um and so depending on what your structures are you may or may not be able to utilize additional space in order to be able to separate groups of students and have that distancing occur specials we discussed specials and being able to offer those to students as normal with modifications obviously for safety and so um realizing you know when students go to Art they're using a lot of the same materials and things you know music that that type of thing so we talked about uh if I'm a music teacher and I'm using the xylophones or the bells I am not going to use those same materials for that next group of students coming in we'll have to have a different plan in place for them with different materials so that there is not that cross-contamination going on we also discussed for art the possibility of perhaps having students bring their own if it's you know colored pencils that they're using that day or markers having them bring those materials with them so that they are using their materials and it's not you know Community supplies what about band did you guys discuss band at all or was it not even discussed band was discussed but what specifically I've heard people say band is like you know they're spitting on things I don't know no I'm not a band person well I got any thoughts on this I've had somebody asked me a question about the end I'm like I have no idea but the presentation will probably go over it so I don't know what I'm not a band person it's not well I've had no yeah several questions about um are the electives going to still occur I know power ranch has a wider variety of electives that they offer um versus the other elementary schools not only that but again banned the the spitting out of I I'm not a band person either but also choir choir was also brought up to my attention that Choir they're very concerned how choir is going to look so those are those questions that I'm hearing out in the community from teachers and students and parents so and they won't be able to wear their mask during band I would assume if you're playing an instrument that requires your mouth I Christina again I feel like you should pipe in here with some help but there are masks for instruments that you can put a mouthpiece through so like it's through the mask is on the outside of the mouthpiece because that's typically not where the sound comes from so I mean there are things that you can do and I'm sure our high schools and middle schools will be happy they're still playing and they're they're making it work and and I know it's different than a classroom you know for Littles but typically what is it sixth grade that does the option of band but there I mean there are things choir is a little more difficult because it's all your mouth so I don't I don't know what an option for that would be but I mean we have talented music teachers and choir instructors who can this is being talked about Across the Nation across the world because people don't want the music to stop for sure so uh yeah so one of our committee members is actually an orchestra teacher and that that was brought up and so we talked about bands specifically the instruments those kids use their own instrument so there's not sharing of the instruments minus is it percussion would that be the drums okay so sorry uh but but yeah yeah I apologize um but that would be the area that we need to focus on sanitizing before um sharing of of those instruments I just had heard it from the community like are we gonna offer band I'm like I really have no idea I will find out for you and make sure it's addressed so I feel like at this point it could be addressed here but so I think that's a good answer I'm glad there's a mask I had no idea but there was such a thing now I'm gonna have to Google afterwards so cool thank you they're not but they're there or you can make a transition mask to put a mouthpiece through so obviously what we're working with the teachers because how they structure the space the place and the instruction is going to look a little different but the goal is to provide the opportunity and and accommodate with reasonable precautions in place foreign [Music] bullet point the some of our schools have uh dyads Triads and departmentalization and so that was something that we discussed um because we want to limit the movement of the students and exposure to different spaces and things like that we talked about having the teachers move with their materials as opposed to having those students move and that would limit some of those transitions as well devices and supplies as we talked about we want to make sure that as much as possible those materials are provided to individual students to prevent that sharing we want to limit again you know we're using a community bucket of things and so being able to provide those things and not having students sharing books computers those types of things if we do have a need for you know a student to use a computer after another we would have those cleaning protocols in place to make sure that those items are cleaned and sanitized prior to someone else using them can I ask you a question whose responsibility is that who's going to be doing the cleaning we talked about with our additional custodial staff that is something that we're looking at scheduling um for you know periodic cleanings whether it be between specialist classes between those major transitions to allow for that staff to go in and and clean and individual student needs will continue to be addressed whether it be special education needs 504 gifted and El Services we would like to continue providing those additional interventions to students who are needing that as well with that distancing as much as possible to keep everybody safe and as far as grading goes we are looking to continue with those accountable grading practices making sure that we are providing feedback I think one of the biggest things is going to be that communication with this and so communicating to students very clearly communicating with parents what those rubrics are going to entail and just keeping that line of communication open having those reasonable timelines and then also being considerate of the fact that if you know a student becomes sick or you know making sure that we are flexible with those due dates allowing students to make workups and the next item is addressing canvas which Dr Foley had talked earlier about we had the opportunity before school dismissed for the summer to provide some initial training to all of our teachers um to give them some exposure this platform is going to be very beneficial in the event that we have to transfer back to online learning if the schools are closed but it will allow us that flexibility we plan to have teachers incorporate that as much as possible integrate that with their teaching in person so that students are familiar if we do have to switch and pivot over to a different type of learning structure students and families have that familiarity with that platform I did mention the training with teachers we also have ambassadors to ambassadors from each site who have spent the summer learning and becoming more familiar with the platform so that they will be available as some additional support at each campus we've also discussed the return of teachers and providing some additional training with within the canvas platform to allow them to continue with becoming more comfortable and familiar with that usage so I think this is going to be a key component to allow us to be able to offer learning at any point in time the other piece going back um Boardman Wilson when you mentioned that if a student is out this is one of the ways that we can help make sure there's the same place to go so that we don't fall behind and that we can communicate and connect with our students so again this is going to be the integration of the technology and a common place to go is going to be something that is long-term for the learn Paradigm Shift learning in in the Higley school district and this is we've learned a lot and we're we're only going to get better at how we use it not only when we're in person but also for remote learning when needed thank you and the the final um bullet point there just addresses that we will be offering modified extracurricular activities to students because I know that that is something that is important to our community as well and so um with those safety protocols in place and allowing that to occur and continue as much as possible so the short version of the hybrid is it's essentially that all students in the building protocols procedures Logistics in place with a variation in the schedule so at any given point we would have half of our students on campus and half of our students at home learning remotely and So within our committee we hash out pros and cons for various models we're not limited to these three that we have up here on the board there are so many different variations out there that if we were to Pivot in this direction at some point we would probably need to Hash that out what what way do we want to go which which model truly benefits our community the most so the 212 that would be two days so cohort a let's say would be in class two days a week one day of the week would be completely remote for all cohorts and then two additional days that week would be cohort B in class so and that could look like a Monday Thursday for cohort a or Monday Tuesday that could be a Tuesday Friday for cohort a or or vice versa so uh two three three two was a two in three out and then those two cohorts would flip-flop the next week and then a b was uh one weekend with cohort a cohort B learning remotely the next week would be cohort B in class with cohort a learning remotely there's also an AMPM model so there's there's a plethora of options to choose from should we go in this direction at any point but again the the main Keys here are consistent with what Miss Pappy just described canvas again would be utilized for the online learning components and I want to emphasize that professional development on on campuses will be definitely uh hitting on canvas very hard this year just in terms of supporting our teachers making sure they have enough time to play with the tool familiarize themselves with the capabilities and and having the ability to plan with their peers and and just discuss best practices and and whatnot we need to support our teachers and and time and and just uh focusing on what's truly important this year is going to be emphasized president Kaylor members of the board you can see we have lots of different opportunities for higher bed models and we don't know what that might look like but one thing we did discuss that we're we're definitely in favor of is keeping families together so if you have brothers and sisters that are on the same schedules you are that would be best for families and best for a community Dr Thomas on the hybrid model and I know that it's kind of just out there at the moment what is the health benefit to that what would the what is the health benefit to it how does that really from a safety perspective and then what what is the benefit and the harm educationally of Vice President Reese that is something I would definitely have to do more research on but I can give you my unprofessional biased opinion would be that we limit the number of students in the class for more physical distancing so that would be um off the top of my head what I would say that would be the benefit that I could think of at this time would just be half the students on a campus at the same time so if if we did have an outbreak it wouldn't affect the entire population of a grade level it would just in fact half the population of a grade level but that is my um my unprofessional opinion at this time we can talk about the online yes we'll switch over to the um the last um section here for the online and this is kind of two-fold because as we mentioned there may be families who are choosing to stay home and so this model could work for if schools are closed and then this will also be the plan for those students who are opting to to learn from home at the start of the year so it would it would continue to be a typical five-day week with perhaps modified Wednesdays to allow for office hours for teachers to interact with their families um having still maybe teaching for half a day and then offering in the you know afternoon portion that time to have those office hours or collaborate with peers virtually um devices and hot spots we discussed would be something that would be a need as we did in the fourth quarter having that instruction again being in that core content area with the focus on those essential skills and Mastery for those essential skills continuing as we would in the classroom with that social emotional support especially given the fact that they would be continuing to be out of the classroom and perhaps dealing with some additional circumstances that would impact that social emotional aspect offering specials through the canvas platform and so they would still have an opportunity to have access to that curriculum from home [Music] and then one of the things that we had talked about uh as Miss Richards mentioned with kind of the quality of the instruction that was being offered in our fourth quarter and increasing that to provide more opportunities for those live interactions with students and their teachers to have more The increased engagement opportunities through canvas that platform also provides some different ways for students to be more interactive with their peers as well as with their teacher and so those are some things that we would weave into the learning again having those accommodations provided to students supporting that those gifted Learners the ell and special education so those things would still continue we also discussed having small group lives sessions so that teachers could have more of that individualized support for students that are needing that um and then again as we said canvas would be that primary platform and the way that teachers would communicate with families with students having those assignments and those weekly updates within the platform and then as far as our grading practices this was something that would be a variance from the fourth quarter so they would be accountable to the work uh with that clear communication those rubrics being provided and and making sure that our students know what's expected our parents know what is expected of of the students you'll notice oh go ahead so you'll notice that there's a difference from ending the year instantly to beginning learning in this in this platform a true online instruction component to this so this is this will be different there will be differences than what we experienced at the closure of the year in in the kind of instruction the amount of instruction and the grading and assessment of that instruction so again it's important to know that when families are going to be asked to decide what is it you are wanting the in-person or the online with the understanding that you have the flexibility and what you've heard is that there's been some intentional thinking of if there is for any reason the need or as things change as they tend to be happening um that we could be we may be flexible in what that might look like in the face-to-face version Dr Foley that's exactly what I wanted to reiterate is just that parents know that when they sign up if they're thinking online it's not going to be the online of fourth quarter last year no it is going to be the expectation uh much higher yep and um so I appreciate you making that very clear well and we have a common learning platform because we went literally on spring break not knowing that we wouldn't return and students then had to engage in a way they had never may have never had the opportunity to do so there will be a learning opportunity here for all of us right and some people I know that struggled a little bit with teams I think teams was one of the options out there and that was really kind of confusing so getting everything into canvas is sounds magical so Dr Foley I want to acknowledge all of the administrators they've all stepped up and worked all summer Kelly and Jeff signed up to lead and if you saw on that one slide 60 plus hours of work so thank you guys thank you thank you for the opportunity I think thank you and you guys have been here an extra four hours tonight rack it up it's our pleasure over time oh that's right and I will as as Elementary transitions out secondary is coming in and I want you to know that initially when we sat down their their slideshow was was more than these slides so again they're giving you a snapshot a big Vision um versus but there's a lot more information that we'll be providing so families have them thank you can I just say something about both secondary and Elementary are here you've done a wonderful job here this evening in our presentation thus far and I think it's so important for you as administrators to understand um the positive leadership that we need in our school district the students are going to be watching you the parents are going to be watching you and all these things you've done are wonderful and we need to be doing this across the district okay so so thank you for what you're doing I know you're going to be positive leaders out there but it's what we need so much today is we need positive leadership and guidance so you guys are going to be the role models on the front lines so I thank you for what I've seen today and I know we're going to do a great job um and can I just piggyback off that please I agree and also consistency it's going to be you know we're going to be held well this school is doing it and that school's doing that and that that consistency is going to be so crucial moving forward but yes I Echo your remarks thank you Mr watovich and to acknowledge what you've both said what's beautiful is our amazing leaders in Higley have been on these on these it is being part of building this so that they can be part of instrumentally leading this and that's something we're really really proud of we are really fortunate to have amazing leaders and teachers in this district and they are showing it so yes thank you thank you everybody our secondary team we have Mr Steve Tannenbaum from Westfield High School and Miss Tommy bird who is a new Dean at Higley High School uh yeah and we're so happy for her good evening Madison whoa there we go good evening Madam president members of the board um Captain and Dr Tomlinson Miss Byrd and I had the great opportunity of tackling our three uh instructional models I can say the uh our committee we were so proud of the work that they put in uh the 50-hour plus time of the leaders that took place in this the creation of a subcommittee of teachers to review the work that we were doing and components of that and at the end of our presentation an extra subcommittee of advisory that had different teachers as well as stakeholders to review the work and provide guidance and feedback that collaboration process was so important it provided multiple perspectives it gave us perspectives for teachers that had also students within the district from the elementary side all the way to the high school asking questions of looking for consistency across the board if they do have a child that is in elementary middle or AI as many of our families do within our district and that was a that was a very important piece for us so that collaborative process was was outstanding so I can't thank our groups our subcommittees our advisory committees and and the amount of feedback that they provided in such a short jam-packed time that we had to go over this process as Dr Foley mentioned we're giving a brief overview of of what this looks like for us we have much of a similar model and tackle the same problems and issues and created solutions that the elementary school did but we'll be providing a different view for you since you were able to view the the one view of the elementary but but please know Ms bird and I are happy to answer all specific details and questions as we provide this overview of this tonight as we dove into this and took our presentation from 60 to 60 different slides to what you'll see tonight we uh you know we use multiple documents that the Department of Education was putting out we brainstormed we got together we looked at other states we communicated with friends that we had as administrators across the state as well in the collaborative process there and then our first four hour brainstorming meeting we came across reviewing we're at the fourth quarter looked like for us last year and looked at what was positive and what were areas of refinement and as we came through that process the glaring piece for us was canvas we at the secondary many teachers were very comfortable with canvas the approach of canvas uploading but the consistency across the board from one teacher to another teacher from one campus to another campus as some of you may know was was a struggle and really thinking about the end user the end user being the student the parent and of course the teacher from an administrative side of things that it has to be a collaborative approach and there has to be consistency in uniformity no matter what so that our models that we created when we if we have to Pivot in the ever-changing environment we're in the canvas platform is not confusing it is consistent no matter if I am at Sossaman to Higley or Cooley to Williams Field that platform is there and is easily accessible and seen and even to the Fine new details of how assignments will be created and how they will be communicated from a platform of canvas and over to parent view into Synergy the specific details of what that will look like and the expectation that will be across the board through the secondary model in reference to the canvas it's very important I'm glad we're doing it now is because when you get to the universities here in Arizona it's expectation to download canvas so I'm glad we're on on the same page so thank you and Mr motovich think about our Littles that might be experienced canvas and kindergarten or first or second grade and now by the time they get into high school and college they could teach the canvas class back to our new teachers I appreciate hearing that there's going to be some consistency I think that was a word I heard you use and I think that's a great word across the board that we're going to have some consistency among classes um some of us experienced it as having teenagers uh at Art high schools and I think consistency is a great piece and I'm excited to see that Miss bird you like to take them through nope there it is sorry uh this is an example of what one of the home pages will look like this is Williams Fields um and so basically regardless of what class you're in or what school you're at the secondary classroom on canvas will look like this we have different buttons for the different schools so it can be spirited for the kids um but basically it just helps students and parents to know exactly where to go for announcements how to get a hold of your teacher where your assignments are they won't have to go digging and looking in different places for what they need to do so first and foremost in our minds is we were looking at the models that we're going to share tonight is one the fact that we want to keep the Integrity of the kids education we want to make sure that this is still a rigorous learning environment standards-based education we don't want to lose any of that but on the other side was that emotional Wellness piece and this was something that caused a lot of problems and stress for parents and students is they just didn't understand where to go which of course we didn't have a lot of time to plan for when we close but now we do and so we have the systems in place to train teachers to train students to train parents and to make sure that what they see like you guys said is consistent across the board so that was really important to us so this will be the answer page so if I'm a student and I don't have a clue about canvas or a parent this is where I go to get the answers of how to even set up we will actually the teachers will set the pages up and they'll go through that first week with students they'll make sure that the kids know exactly where to go how to get the information okay so there will be some training for them well we do like a canvas night like we did Higley High had one um it was like back to school night or something like that and they had a canvas night for the parents will we have something like that offered I don't know how we can even do that with social distancing I'm not sure how that online we can have we've gotten we've learned an awful lot about how to do things effectively virtually now in a way that and once we do it that way then it's we can actually record it so it's utilized multiple times and and we've even gotten better at how to do it um we've learned a thing or two about how to do this even better which will change How We Do instruction which is a positive sure the um the colleges all have online tutorials so you just go to the page to see how I do this how I set things up so it might be a good idea for us to do a online tutorial so we would need to come and do a presentation on that yeah we have quite a few videos already that our teachers have put together so we're getting ready for that one of the things I think we learned through this is that if there are things we can do actually better more effectively virtually so that what we do in together and in person is more meaningful than than trying to do it all in person so that's a thing we've learned a positive opportunity we've learned the um the modules to um will be the same so one of those one of those pieces those elements that are consistent is uh the concern we heard is where do I go to find my lessons or my instruction for that week when we focus all out of modules and the way that the modules are labeled as well as q1 quarter one week one date and topic those pieces and elements make that easy transition for parents to view maybe I was out sick throughout this week what week was that it was week two what topic was I covering it was this and that as well matches what they'll see as a grade and Synergy to review those pieces and so and as mentioned before we have tutorials already built we're compiling them and deciding where they'll be on pages for parents to see um and and that piece goes into some of our communication elements and expertise that we're going to need to provide our all of our families um Mr Tannenbaum is bird so um I'm just going to throw this out there I don't I don't want us to get too terribly sidetracked but I I hear what you're saying about consistency I mean this is my this is I mean I large part of my my actual paid job is is some of this stuff and so there's consistency in telling people what the expectation is but do you or or Mr uh lotzenheiser like who do you have access to look at all these teachers I mean I'm a trust but verified kind of person so I'm envisioning worst case scenario we're all stuck at home again who's checking to make sure I'm not saying like police but just to be sure I mean we told you yes we told you but are you actually doing it do you guys have access to log in and do that we do it's a great question yeah we we do have access to to review those and we actually went through on our campus and had conversations to support our teachers that were possibly still struggling and then we have campus experts that we would help to provide them the expertise that they would need for their specific class so we do we all and that's part of our flow chart as an Administration is the group of teachers that we oversee is we help the support as well in canvas education so our Administration team has have learned more about canvas than we ever had before you know from an outside view of not even using it in the classroom what did our mother say about necessity as the mother of invention with the fabulous thing here is that there is also the ability in canvas for multiple levels of users so that you can can view and and see and administrators have the ability to be in the every one of the teachers canvas courses for consistency also during fourth quarter teachers worked really well together within their plcs to share lessons and to share ideas and there's a place called canvas Commons where they can actually upload entire classes and someone else can download it onto their page so there's there's a lot of support from within I think as well so that there's not as much policing that needs to happen although I agree definitely need to have that too but teachers were very very supportive in helping each other out during quarter four so those canvas ambassadors we talked about and those teachers are also building model model courses so that as we begin to build that Library you have common courses that can be utilized so we take the very best of the best and can share when we're teaching similar courses so this is another positive opportunity that we're going to continue to build on the parent communication side of things is parent communication as well as student communication within the first two weeks of school there's ambassadors in each of our different subject areas that will train um and the already created PowerPoint that will take students through how do I get to my husd email how do I log into canvas what do I do to troubleshoot who do I contact if I need support all of those elements are all part of our now beginning process for the year we generally go through those but the speed and emphasis of where that comes if we have the opportunity to start back we'll be first and foremost so that students understand that platform we have troubleshooted the the questions and then of course the clear transparent communication out to families regarding the steps that were taking place in the classroom to prepare their students for success and that continued communication of reopening details safety protocols and guidelines that the district has created for us it's not just a one-time communication it is constant correct communication will build confidence and consistency across our district and of course across our campuses so that Weekly communication from myself and the other side administrators is key as we continue to navigate the ever-changing environment that we're in so on-campus instruction um I can tell you walk in campus today I I just I miss kids I miss our I miss the I miss our classrooms full and I miss our students around um the opportunity for us to be on campus um is a challenge of course but one that our community seems to want and we will continue to adjust and evaluate as we travel through what's on Campus Learning would look like in the hope to be back in The New Normal with new and improved safety procedures that we'll be putting in place one of the the elements of course is in in this this takes place with all teachers but the increased focus on building relationships we we always strive for that we always look to build authentic connections making our students feel connected feel safe feel uh that they belong to a community and sometimes that process it takes time it takes time to build that but that re-emphasis of of that piece I think is is very easy for us to to jump on to because we we talk to our students about appreciating the moment they're in that high school is not supposed to be a Sprint Middle School is not supposed to be a Sprint it can be a marathon of learning and opportunity and so many times we look we're anxious to move on to our junior year or our senior year our freshman year of college and unfortunately the the piece that took place as many many students missed that chance to have closure so I think that that re-emphasis of being together building relationships in in the social distancing as much as possible environment but really looking to engage students and that engagement process as well as to evaluate which standards are missed what essential standards were missed as students travel through their years of school deciding assessments that need to be looked at so that teachers can gauge and review Curriculum maps that will best assess and prepare students to be successful and if that means we need to go back backwards to learn how to to to walk before we can Sprint in a pre-count class then those to the elements that we do and so there's a there's a big focus on those pieces as we start to navigate what instruction looks like no matter what form we're in but that emphasis there the of course the interview integration of canvas always and reverting back to that that will become something that will be much easier to integrate the technology in the canvas daily when we are in a system of one-to-one computers for students but even without there's still plenty of ways to do that but I focus on the integration of Technology the focus on professional development in using technology and of course making sure that our students have all the access and are able to troubleshoot problems that might arise Mr Tannenbaum I know it was really important that especially in our upper math classes that we are going to have that time for review and to find those missing pieces because I know that that's a big concern for a lot of just even students even our top students kind of checked out I would probably some of the most so um I'm glad you're looking at that review time starting off and also I'm all about social emotional learning and having the connection with the teacher that is huge and I know a lot of students are missing that just as much as teachers missing them so I appreciate that concern too so the virtual instruction um sorry I just lost my train of thought um where the okay so canvas is kind of our base of operations when we're in the classroom and it's used to support what's happening in the classroom whereas with the virtual instruction this is if students opt to stay home and learn from home or if there's another school closure so in this case canvas is the classroom and so we do want to make sure that kids are familiar with it like you said we'd be working with it in class but the things we wanted to think about with the virtual instruction were the assignments and how they're being graded and making sure that kids are actually learning and showing Mastery through their assignments this isn't just a quick worksheet busy work kind of thing we want to make sure again that the Integrity of the education is still solid and so that's something we focused on in addition we talked about how to keep attendance we'd have to get kind of creative with how we do that and so we've talked about different ways to do that to make sure that kids are actually actively engaged every week and getting things done and then you talk about the social emotional we would have set days for teachers to actually be face to face virtually with students they would still meet with first hour second hour third hour at a given time so everyone goes to first hour at the same time everyone's at second hour at the same time to make sure that they were getting that instruction face to face and then of course for students who couldn't be there we would train teachers how to use teens how to record so that kids could always go on later to see what they missed and then just like with the Elementary classrooms like they were talking about Wednesday would be kind of an office hours day so that again they would have that one-on-one instruction that they needed um can I just ask a quick question there I think you addressed some of it um especially with our high school students and I've talked to Dr Foley about this and Dr Thomason about this um for our high school students I would love to see that live online that Dr Thomason mentioned it earlier that when we integrate our students if they want to start out online and then they want to integrate back into the school how do they do that what kind of schedule do they have that if we have their schedule and they have their schedule is what it is and they have to log on for each hour of class and that that class is live streamed that they have to log on be present they can interact with those peers they can interact with the class and then Mr Tannenbaum Mr Fields our counselors aren't trying to figure out how to fit these kids in classes when they want to come back and if we have a place marker there for them I mean what does that look like you're getting a different instruction if you're online and you're not doing this all live online well the teacher's Pace may be different and everything else and then all of a sudden at fall break we're trying to integrate these students into classes and how does that work with any electives did they get electives did they not get electives and so I especially for our high school kiddos I would love to see that with our elementary kiddos that do some online option the expectation to of second third fourth fifth graders sitting in front of a computer all day to learn is a little bit harder but with our high schoolers if they have that live online learning that they are part of that class they know their peers they get to interact with their peers and then they make that transition back to school whenever they feel comfortable and safe they're coming into the same classroom they were participating in they are part of that classroom they know that teacher they weren't taught differently they're at that same spot so I would really I know you said that there would be some live maybe a day that they would have to log in first second and third but I would really like to see that online option to be a live online option so they can truly be part of that class when our kids take College online classes there's a aptitude test that they have to take prior to getting enrolled into an online program to make sure they are good online Learners because for some they are and some they're not and it's really difficult when you don't have that instruction they're given in instructions but they're not taught there was no teaching so um I would really like to try and see at all for those online options to do that and I know you said we would have some of that face to face but if I'm learning from a different teacher and then I make that transition into into class it could be we're in a different place and that could be very difficult and especially I know I've had conversations previously with Mr Tannenbaum when you have those higher level students and those classes are limited and they're full how do we transition those kids back in there when they're ready to come back to school because we're hoping I believe I know I am that by the end of next school year you know prior to then we have all of our kids in our schools learning and the way the way they need to be learning and that they are making progress and that they are getting educated not just doing work so I know that I would love to see that whether the reality of that is I don't know but we have to think about as Dr Thomason said we want to be prepared for these kids to transition back in at any time as well as if though any particular kids transition out at any of at any time and we don't want them to miss a beat there and one of the things that will be very important to help us do a good job of preparing is for families to let us know what they're wanting because as soon as we know the number of students and what what grade level those students are what courses they're needing it allows us to begin to figure out what this looks like and how we will structure that and and best fit with need of the student that individual student and where they are in their in their progression so this is going to be important for us to know and know early so that we can adjust and one of the things to Mr tannerman and Mrs bird have talked about is this idea of those essential standards we're chunking that at the quarter so that we can do a good job of monitoring where kids are with the understanding that we're also going to have to continue to be very formative in figuring out where kids are and and providing that instruction for Mastery so again a lot of rethinking How We Do teaching and learning in a new time but really focusing on quality and either in either choice and like Dr Foley said earlier I I think that I've taught online for a long time and it can be done and I know people aren't necessarily used to it but it can be done you can get a solid education online you definitely need that interaction but it's not just log in write a paper I'll talk to you in a week after I read it kind of thing this is going to be an Interactive Learning Experience it's also going to need teachers are going to need to be more I'm trying to think of the word more um not lockstep but but aligned I guess with their with their pacing um so often teachers teach to the middle which means the kids who move more quickly get bored and the kids who need more help just don't get the help and so it's it's a learning process for teachers to understand that you make sure everybody gets it before you move on and then the kids who've got it that those are the kids you get to extend the learning for and you get to challenge them with other activities so there's some PD that I think needs to go with this and our we've got great coaches on our campuses at our district that will help with that we've got great instructional leaders that can work with that too so I don't think this has to be like we're just putting a Band-Aid on the problem and we'll do the best we can I really think we have a great opportunity to transform the way that we look at education and really make it more student-centered so I'm excited about this I think this could be really cool for education hybrid is are doing our two together just like the elementary schools talked about we would want to make sure that we align scheduling with them it would be that same type of two days on campus three days off campus but still learning five days a week um and in this case we would want to again increase that focus on building those relationships while we have the kids right in front of us whether it's virtual or in the classroom and really this could be more of the flipped classroom model where the kids are doing things at home that they can do at home and when they're in the classroom they're doing things that they cannot necessarily do at home or they can't do as well the peer interaction the peer editing the presentations the socratic seminars discussions those kind of things teachers would need to focus their time and make that time in class really purposeful and then the kids could be at home getting ready for that while they're online um yeah I think that's it I mean really the canvas is key really having that consistency across the board and if if on Friday I say I'll see you Monday and then oops I'm not going to see you Monday because the governor just closed the schools down again it doesn't matter you're still showing up on Monday you know how to do that we're continuing we're not going to stop just because now you're sitting at your dining room table instead of in my classroom so so again I guess the question is we were talking earlier about the like specials electives choir band again in the secondary level it's even more so prevalent on our campuses so how is that looking coming back the the specifics of the electives in those courses are Educators as mentioned before are outstanding I know from the side of of band and as they've been practicing just much like the Athletics they have gotten guidance from you know the national organizations regarding specific cleaning and the protocol regarding instruments and how do we clean and how do we safely clean and they've gone through some of those pieces within a specific Band program your class sizes are going to be large we're going to do the best to distance as much as we can but but that's what we'll do and we'll increase you know cleaning will increase awareness we'll increase the conversation with students provide flexibility for students who who do choose to want to be in person but also want to have options and choices regarding maybe where they're sitting at lunch and having different different options there and we're looking to open you know specific areas on campus that maybe haven't been utilized in the past for kids but those students should have the option to to be on campus and yet have some flexibility about their comfortability level um and that will go with all electives as well and how about passing period I know that that's a concern for many parents and students even that the Halls are already very crowded there's no way there's going to be social distancing so again I guess I just want to you know the community needs to hear from us on how are we are we going to do staggering of classes and letting them you know release different I mean I can't even imagine that kind of bell schedule but will they be one-way hallways I've heard of that going on like where they do like a one-way hallway I don't know every school is set up differently so it would depend on the logistics of the school um it's tough it's tough if you've got all the kids on campus they're going to be next to each other which is why we make sure that we're educating parents and students on washing your hands often on not using other people's supplies on wearing your mask those kinds of things it just really you know talking about the six feet apart and just constant reminder of This Is The New Normal and this is this is just what we do now kind of thing and so it's just that constant reminders and education and I mean they're just there's only so much you can do you can't force teenagers not to you know do what they do um but you know we can be good model role models and just have those discussions with them and just do the best we can with that the altered Bells make it very difficult in the high school setting with students that is a they're a freshman and they're traveling to a generally maybe senior level class or an advanced course um so many shared courses depending upon I mean the course sure they're the same but not the electives and you know we're so proud in our district at the both the middle school and the high schools to offer so many options for students so creating a bell schedule that sends a freshman group out and we we talked it through we really did then we looked at well there would be students standing outside of the door group together waiting to get in while the other Bell shifted to let the next grade level group out um because it's such a mini City in that sense that they're all moving into some some of the same classrooms in the blend of grade levels so it's it's that it's that consistent signage Universal signage Universal um you know awareness and having an adult step out in the home even more than they have in the past to try to move students along um you know in the education piece for students of where we are and we're happy to be there on campus but there's there's pieces of being here as being respectful for each other's space and allowing space when needed and of course continuing that opportunity to move and get to your next opportunity to learn in the next classroom to be in um lunch rooms will be probably pretty similar too will it look pretty similar to what it did last year will it look I guess your tables aren't there's no your tables are different than your table yeah and you only have so much space I know there's a squished space and there's only so much space so there's no way yeah correct depending depending on the site you know we had some principals talk about well maybe we could you know reschedule Gym classes so that gym classes aren't taking place during lunch so kids could go in there and it really it depends on the site and on on their scheduling in their again the logistics it's people are gonna have to get creative foreign opportunities are going to look like in the in person and the online the one thing we want to be very clear with the community and as you've heard is that what they're what we can do and what we can't do what we can do is is you've heard about our health protocols our safety and cleaning protocols you've heard about our awareness you've heard about the the processes are going to we're going to return to a new normal things are going to be they are going to look different but there are things we cannot do while we can post signage why we can have monitoring of behaviors while we can make people aware we cannot we cannot ensure that physical distancing is possible at all times and when and when students return to school even if we were in a hybrid situation in some cases it would still be impossible to ensure so I think we have to be honest about what we can do and and what we can't do um when we take a look at the guidance um again so we want people to know that when they're making their decision on what are the what are the options for me and my family and can I change my mind yes so again I want to thank our our administrators for working through the you know it's a lot of work just to get school storybook started in in normal this is a new normal with many possibilities and our administrative team has been been amazing and so we are going to transition to talk about a few more things we're going to talk about what does since we were talking about lunches what does Food Service look like what does human resources for because we've taught facilities health and wellness and students we're going to talk about staff as well so we have a few more areas that we're going to talk about tonight we appreciate the long presentation here but Frank President Kelly can we take a three minute break sure good wait a little break we'll take a transition break thank you thank you Mr watsonheiser not all our meetings are usually this short they're usually a lot longer so I know this is your first one foreign are we ready to start okay so as we transition into talking about food service the one other piece I wanted to just I would be remiss if I did not say is that our teachers and our instructional coaches are working really hard to embrace new and have been planning and preparing and will and will continue to do so when they return and so I think one of the things I'm really proud of too is the work that our teachers have done and will continue to do so that's something we count our that we're really proud of and and want to make sure we acknowledge there's been a lot of work done by our teachers and they'll continue to be so so we also want to talk about what is what does what does lunch look like because that again was a frequently Asked question what is the food service component to this and Food Services has been working and we'll be working with each site but Sam um is here to talk with us a little bit more about the food service components president cater members of the board this is the d card for any food purchases and so forth which helps eliminate the cross contact of our keypads that we currently have in force along with other departments we will coordinate and continue to promote physical distancing by having signage most commonly you've seen it at stores you know vinyl floor signs signs on the walls and so forth so nothing different than what we've already seen on the public well we do plan on doing is eliminating all self-serve unwrapped items so we will modify the menu from entirely what we saw last year just to help with the safety and sanitation at the elementary schools we will eliminate all self-serve items period for the time being to help with the safety and the sanitation and of course as we know of the middle schools the high schools they're a little more informed they they know a little bit more what to do what not to do but for them at least we will create additional service points to help disperse them amongst different areas of the lunchroom or it could be the multi-purpose room and it really depends on each site so I've already set up meetings with every site administrator or left them emails to get back with me on the first week of July so that we can curtail our operations for each individual school because what works for Coronado will not work for San Tan and that definitely will not work for Bridges so I have many options that I just need to work with each administrator and make sure it's going to be a good fit for them we can do anything from basic service in the cafeteria on a condensed menu to we can add an additional service point it's whatever is going to work for each site administrator it's nice to hear about your flexibility so appreciate that I know you got to just kind of go with the blow it's what it is yeah and food service for sure well thank you again for coordinating all of our meals that you've provided for our families I know the moms are probably going to miss it because now they got to think about lunch too so but thank you so much I appreciate your time hey well I'd like to say we saved the best for last but given my colleagues and how they demonstrated their communication as well as their knowledge I certainly know that's not the case they've all done a wonderful job tonight um but information which I know I'm sure a lot of people both um you know streaming this as well as Mr rutovich and all the view in terms of questions for our employees I want to reiterate some of the caveats that we mentioned earlier today that Mr watsonheimer as well as Miss Richards mentioned you know as well as Dr Foley actually we did this survey back in early June so things have changed and as we've talked about the theme of the night things will continuously change um so we want to acknowledge that but I'm going to share the themes that we saw from our employees in regards to their response of the employee survey that we sent out in which we did get really good um feedback on in the larger picture as Mr Watson armer mentioned about a 62 return rate or in the 60s um the bigger so I'm going to talk about the themes and as I talk about the themes I'm also going to talk about some other things in relation to that one being that when our certified employees went out a lot of them as well as our 10 month employees may not know about the f f c r a the family's first Coronas response Act and the different components that federally the government supported in relation to that so I'll talk a little bit more about that but in terms of these larger themes one of the big ones were what is the work expectations for teachers in that survey we asked about remote learning online learning and in-person learning and what we heard back was we're willing to do in person we're willing to do remote but we do not see how this hybrid is going to work and if there is the ability to do a hybrid I'm going to be doing double the work because if I'm going to be teaching Am Pm different courses or I'm teaching expected to teach all day and then go into a remote context are you going to pay me double because I'm I'm going to be doing double the work so that was one of the questions that came up and we clearly thought as a group and in the bigger picture and you know this ties in with some of a lot of other things that we heard today in terms of funding and finances no there's not going to be double the work um because we aren't able to do double the pay and the bigger picture we heard a lot about PPE and hygiene what's going to happen you know employees come to you know we kind of in a lot of ways give ourselves Kudos I'm gonna truck through this I have a little bit of a cold or already knows but I'm coming to work and I'm going to truck through this so really making sure as we talked about earlier educating everybody educating our families educating our employees if you are sick stay home we and we are not going to shame you we want you to stay home because that is the best practice in our new normal um as well as the fact though because we want to make sure that we're being safe and making this environment as safe as we can reasonably do so we're going to offer you PPE and we're going to offer and talk about hygiene and have signs as Dr Tomlinson mentioned earlier we've spent over a hundred thousand dollars at this point in regulation in regards to face masks Shields sanitation wipes for the classrooms hand sanitizer so we're going to be able to offer those where admin so teachers even myself you know we bought those stuff on our own and we had those in our classrooms but we're going to make sure that anything an employee whether certified or classified want to feel as though they can reasonably do their work um here in person we're going to offer and give them physical distancing you heard the theme in regards to that and that we're going to do our best in most cases it's just not going to be possible um you know we're welcoming back hopefully knock on wood 13 500 students amongst 13 sites 15 schools when you include our preschools it's just not possible and the bigger picture so we don't want to be unrealistic and we certainly don't want to share that that's something that we can do and that was a concern for our employees um and out of the 899 responses I would say a majority of them do want to return as we said earlier but as you mentioned Mr watovich at the time we were just gauging a pulse so we didn't know all the details we just wanted to hear do you want to come back and if you do want to come back what are your concerns it was open-ended and we did we got a lot of comments um I would say more than not we got comments and feedback back from our employees in regards sister this is how I think you can make it safe for me um to I'm very comfortable I have no concerns I want to be back to I want to be back because I know remote learning doesn't work but I'm not quite sure that I'm comfortable in the larger picture so what are we gonna do um and that's where the HR subgroup said you know we have to shift from comfortable to reasonable because of the fact that um as I said earlier my comfortable is not going to be your comfortable so what can we reasonably do as an employer as an organization to make you want to come back and feel as though you can be safe in in these circumstances in the larger picture uh one of the things that you're not going to see tonight but it's going to be behind the scenes and that we're going to work with our administrators on is well actually pardon me we have it drafted but we'll be providing it for our administrators is one of those training components as a decision tree grid so as we go on to the next slide I missed something I didn't hear in reference to the additional help for cleaning the school was I covered yes so um I did not speak to it yet but I was going to speak to it but uh this is a reiteration of some of the things that we talked about earlier today we hired 13 new positions in our custodial area one for each site and their goal and the intention for that position is that they help maintain cleanliness at those sites and help assist in any which way the administrator feels that it's possible whether it's helping in between classes depending on the School site and the need to helping just in general in the morning or afternoon or during the day they know their site's best so they're going to try to manage based on their current Staffing in custodial and this we've also talked about um and I know that this is something we have to further flush out but in regards to our various paraprofessionals um you know we have paraprofessionals that are titled paraprofessionals we have those at the preschools that are just part of the preschool component and then we have our sped where they're going to be helping in helping maintain and clean and do our best in between there too so so um if we're going to be hiring one person cleanliness and sanitation is very important we have some of our one person is an extra person at the school is not enough we are receiving additional funds so why aren't we hiring more maintenance people to come in at each School because point blank one person is not going to help at one school okay so why aren't we bringing more maintenance people on with some of the additional funding that we have so that's something we're still looking at I mean there's um you're right we're getting extra funds but those funds are going very quickly we also know that we're going to have to have extra teaching staff extra staff for it and extra staff in different areas if one person is not enough for cleaning to make sure then we will bring on extra staff or extra help and then we'll also give opportunities to some of our other areas if they want to pick up extra hours before school or after school to do more deep cleaning because I hear you Mr tovich we just have to make sure that we get things going and definitely monitor that if it's not enough we will definitely have to hire more individuals or give extra stipends for those that want to work extra hours so when our schools open up is there like going to be a super cleaning crew that comes into each one of our schools how are we doing I mean Wonder we do have they do have individualized checklists that they have to accomplish every day some of the things that they've done on a regular basis may not be get done as often because we have to do more of the deep cleaning more of the coven type cleaning and so that's always been a an issue of not getting everything done but we're going to have to prioritize the health and safety of the students and if we need to add more help in that area that is something that we're willing and able to do I hope that that's very important because the more you know the lunchroom the bathrooms need to be not cleaned you know once a day or early morning we're talking a lot more intensive work that needs to take place so I hope we take a real serious look before school even starts that additional maintenance I don't want to see us like two weeks in and go oh my gosh we need more maintenance people no we need to have that conversation now to see what the duties are and what the expectations are of the maintenance person now and see that we have adequate Staffing we do we've had extra checklists maintained and put together to make sure that we're covering those but um we'll have to see when we have a thousand kids in a campus to see if we need to add more um before school after school and maybe give some of our part-time employees extra hours we've talked about that we've talked about lots of different opportunities and options for for cleaning our schools and Mr ratovich I think for that I I wish I would have thought about it when our secondary people were here those classrooms change every hour we have kids come from one seat into another what is that process looking like I mean like Mr watovich was saying you have people cleaning I mean is that the expectation of our teachers to go through and wipe down the desks it is it the expectation of the students to grab a cleaning wipe on their way by as they come in and wipe down their desk I those are good questions um vice president Reese and I can't remember if Dr Fowler mentioned this earlier because as I'm sure you probably know we've read and done and talked so many things you can't always remember where it was talked about but um we have talked about as Dr Thomas and mentioned in regards to the checklist Dr Fowler had members of his team on the maintenance area are doing training um we're Gathering other individuals and talking through that process and what that looks like we've talked about uh options of having students potentially clean their spaces are coming in put hand sanitizer on continuously do that and to take a few minutes to do that in between in terms of the wiping and those have been questions that have come up in the process one of the things and I certainly um not sure that Mr Holland liked me for it but what I tasked him with the other day was that we need you to look at our budget and we need to let you you need to look at your our resources and tell us how much money do we have where could we pass possibly have contingencies that we have not looked into before and we need a total not only with in terms of the cares act but beyond that in terms of what money do we have available and then as a Cabinet team and working with our other administrators we have to prioritize the request because one of the things you'll hear me talk about here shortly too is the fact our substitutes um you know you guys approved I believe that the last board meeting if not the board meeting beforehand our new vendor which is ESI and we've been having lots of conversations with them in regards to making sure that we have enough of a sub pool but there's still a lot of concern in relation to that and the fact that if we don't have a sub are we going to split our classes we can't split our classes because then that's more individuals and more students in our room and so discussion about could we look at having District Subs so we each site possibly having a sub for the whole year that could help cover when needed there's been discussion Within These committees that also talked about for our para Educators who have their bachelor's degree and who are interested in getting their sub-zer would the district maybe look to pay 65 dollars for them to get their subsert so of course comes to worse and we need a pair to help cover our class of the day because we aren't able to or somebody's going out so we've talked about a lot of those things and you can only imagine what Mr Holland's face looked like as we talked about money money money and that's when I said and with Dr Thomas's support and the rest of cabinet we need to know what we have available and then we have to prioritize just like with anything else within your own household what do we have available what are our priorities and what can we afford to do um so we're continuing our conversations in those areas but those are critical you know that takes me back to the maintenance again it's secondary are we going to have enough maintenance staff that every hour between classes after that the bathrooms are going to be cleaned every hour is somebody going to wipe the doors down every hour see that's that's where we need to have this conversation before school starts that these things are going to take place not after okay Indies are in the Committees Mr watovich but it goes back to ultimately what is reasonable and what can we do um you know in the bigger picture and making sure that you know like I said we are having these and then we ultimately have to decide based on dollars based on our resources what route that we take in the bigger picture and this won't be the last time you hear from all of us in relation to this so um you know overview and Overlook in terms of the bigger picture so earlier Mr watovich you asked about at-risk and underlying conditions and what are my options and that was definitely something that we saw that was a theme within the survey that came through as I mentioned earlier we have the family's first Coronas response act that the federal government enacted it was effective as of April 1st and currently goes until December 31st um you know we don't know what the government will do at this point and whether or not they'll look to extend that but that ffcra amongst many other alphabet soups um allows our employees some different components in terms of their circumstances so for example if there's somebody who has covid and has been directed to self-isolate part of that allows them to get 80 hours of paid time off um so that's huge because you know we heard a lot of numbers initially at 14 days you know they reverted back to 10 days with three days of no symptoms so you could total it up and say that could be up to potentially 13 to 14 days so that's a big part we've had probably about a dozen employees more of our 12-month employees who've had to utilize that but we anticipate that we would probably see that on a rise as our certified comeback and our other 10-month employees come back and we'll resume in addition to that component of the paid leave entitlements um the first time ever the federal government also Incorporated part of an emergency leave status in which individuals can have expanded FMLA and get paid based on the status or the notion of why they're out there's six different reasons and based on those reasons where the individual qualifies they actually can stay in a paid status and you may or may not have been aware previously Family Medical Leave Act FMLA was never paid so this is the first time our government has allowed that and has required employers to do that so that's another option um beyond the emergency paid if it falls Within These categories there's still the traditional FMLA so depending on the circumstances we have individuals and employees that can utilize that as a resource and then we also have the American with Disabilities Act where a lot of those underlying conditions are considered disabilities as defined by the federal government and so we'll work with employees in regards to can we offer you a reasonable accommodation that won't cause an undue hardship to the district and so we have to look at what could an accommodation be for individuals one of the biggest things we've talked about for those individuals who are at risk are underlying condition directly is that depending on the survey that we send out for the next steps for our families and how much remote work has to be done a remote online learning those individuals would be our first point of contact to do that and so why they're not having that exposure in the bigger picture there's other questions in regards to well what if I care for somebody who's considered at risk I myself am not at risk and there's different options that can go in that route too again some of the things I've already talked about in relation to the FMLA Ada um but there's also the component and we saw this across our nation was that there might be some personal choices they have to make in terms of how they rearrange their household to accommodate that need moving forward so we'll sit down and talk with them just like we would with any other process with our employees we would sit down and make sure that we talked with them and understand their needs formally it's called starting the interactive process and then seeing based on that what can we do and the reality is it's going to be a case-by-case basis there isn't necessarily going to be one overarching solution for everybody you know we talked about consistency we talked about Equity we'll take all those factors into consideration but every situation tuition is going to be different and we'll have to work with applying those things in terms of our decisions but ultimately knowing that no two situations are the same in the larger picture one one scenario I don't think has been addressed yet and hope never happens what happens if a student in a teacher's classroom is comes up positive so this teacher has direct contact self quarantine so my question to you is when that teacher has to self quarantine because she's directly exposed with that student she works every day or he or she works every day do they have to use their personal leave or vacation time for those 14 days of self quarantine so how have we had a conversation about certainly and part of the ffcra does talk about if you've been exposed or if there's some you've been advised by a health care provider for that depending on exposure and needing to self quarantine so that's always going to be our first route an Avenue in terms of the larger picture if individuals have already exhausted that ffcra emergency paid leave we will have to have a larger discussion in regards to you know will there be a use of General time vacation time Etc I know some of the employees mentioned on the survey that they had heard from other districts that you know they're going to try their best to work with them and we're going to do the same thing we're going to try our best to work with them but we also know one of the solutions that was recommended um from an advisory team member was that could there be a possibility of looking at unlimited PTO for the year with this unique circumstance and the reality is that's not feasible you know earlier Dr Foley talked about a procedure that we use quite a bit when we're doing interest-based bargaining in terms of when we're looking at Solutions Is it feasible is it attainable and is it best and when it doesn't meet those standards a lot of times those Solutions can get I hate to use words shut down but I can't think of another word right now um in that larger process but we always have to have a measurement for that so we certainly don't want them to exhaust all their time but we also have to see within regards of our policies our procedures what we have available but we we're definitely going to work with them the best way we can certainly as I said I don't know what all those options are going to look like yet but it's bound to happen as we said earlier it's not about if it's about when so yeah so in terms of um one of the questions that came up too that was a theme it's okay um would workman's comp ever come in here or not like that's what does it talk about that I'm sorry actually that no that was my next book okay well I'm in here because just after Mr motovich's Question if a person is hurt on the job that's when workman's comp would come in um I would assume the saying is true with an illness like this so go ahead thank you oh no not a problem but that is actually my next point in regards to what if I get coveted at work um will the district pay for my medical expenses as of right now the guidance that um we've received and that we've had discussions with through the trust through different law firms that work with the trust util shamway Gustin Rosenfeld many others across the state is that um you know our employees whether they have medical insurance through us or they have medical insurance through a partner or some other resource that will be a point of contact um if they believe they received this from work we go through the same process of any other workers comp claim so they would call our vendor and the vendor would have to then decide whether or not it's workers compensable or not based on the criteria of the state um I will say it in most cases the conversation around that is that that would be difficult to prove where you you were exposed and how you were exposed but as of right now what we're saying is that we're going to leave that up to the the Arizona State component and let them decide whether or not they're going to make it compensable or not workers compensable but it's a good question Miss Wilson and then the last point was yeah what will happen if a confirmed covet case happens whether it's an employee or a student and that goes to the Dynamics of the flow chart that we talked about earlier um so you know we'll take a look we'll see where it flows we'll talk about communication and who all we have to discuss from there Dr Foley and Dr Thomas and we'll talk about this as we conclude this part of this evening but you know we are talking about training not only for our individuals that are on the front line but as I said for our administrators and taking time at our administrator Retreat to discuss tabletop scenarios how those play out our recommendation in regards to here are some guidance and language and what to share back and how you process it so then that way we're all trying to address it in the best way we can again going back to that consistency as well as making sure that they feel confident in this process as you said earlier Mr watovich you know we have to have Gatekeepers and will have Gatekeepers but our front line administrators and principals at those sites are part of that role and making sure they feel confident in responding to all of these things so that's my portion Mrs Bartons did you mention earlier I you were talking kind of quickly and maybe I heard it wrong but have we already had employees test positive and take care of okay I thought you said did was I the only one that heard that that they had used the ffr oh well not for themselves directly we have I to my knowledge there's no confirmed coveted cases at Higley Unified School District of the employee themselves but going back to that second-hand exposure or that secondhand contact we've had some cases where individuals have had second hand contact and early on um in April and late March the information was much different in terms of how to proceed with that but to my knowledge um as at this point no knowledge of anything okay thank you I misunderstood that I wanted to clarify thank you so much no and I did go by that go through that fairly quick just um you know I know it's been a long night for everybody so I appreciate it well thank thank you thank you so next steps so basically like I shared with you the road map was released on June 1st here we are June 24th you can see a lot of work has happened and and we've illuminated there's a lot more work that needs to be done and this is something that we're going to this is going to be a lift for us this year this is going to be a heavy emphasis this is going to be a big priority where we are right now is at the end of this week there's two Communications going out there will be a family letter with links into that letter that has the examples of um the health you'll have an overview of the instructional model you'll have information about frequently asked questions that came up in the survey the drafts that you saw in the superintendent's report have been revised multiple times since then based on feedback so you again see you will see this is an update as well we're going to be dating that because as things change we'll continue to update that information so that will go out to the communities as well as the survey for them to tell us what option with this in with more information with this with this framework that we put together this far one option at this moment do you want for your student at the same time a survey is going to go to our to our staff and our employees that says here is here is what we're sending to families here are the FAQs for families and for you here are the health protocols and safety here are the answers to the what does this look like in these two models now tell us are you at this point with what's changed since we sent that out on Thursday or the third of June till now 21 days later it'll be probably 25 Days by the time this goes where are you and and if you have a reason that you need to let us know that will allow us to begin to match model need staff need alignment that's going to be big and again so the communication is going to go out the website is going to go live communication will then lead to additional questions and processes that we'll work through the we'll receive the survey data we're going to start finalizing plans um and then we're going to start monitoring and adjusting as you can see there are pieces to this that still need work and again we are not done this we're giving you in the community update of where we've been over the last 24 days um and so with that um foreign we would like to conclude with uh first of all thanking you for taking this much time to let us update you um and there have been good questions along the way any overall questions I would just like to say you've done a wonderful presentation and thank you for for I'm very proud of what you have accomplished here as I say I'm very proud of what you've accomplished I think that you mentioned communication I know there's a lot of people in our community that are sending their children to other places and once they see what we're doing here we are a great option for them so I want you to give some thought as far as when you're sending out communication that you just don't send it to our Higley family that there's a whole nother group out there that would welcome to see what we are doing here and then bring their children on board so think about the communication just within the Higley Community too is as a whole there was also already posts because there is that you know other school districts are changing their calendar and some families do have vacation plans for fall still and I don't know where they can go yet but um you know there could be still things happening and people are counting on that calendar and so I understand the thinking of postponing School see things have settled down and then I also see the same thing of well we start school and we still have those two weeks to kind of play with and that gives our kids a chance to be home and in a quarantine situation again for two weeks which could keep us healthier I see I see both sides so anyhow and president Kayla remembers of the board I would just like to uh to end us the same place we started this this group of individuals have worked so incredibly hard over the last three weeks this has all been put together in three weeks with with start to finish information and we know some things are going to change and so I just want us as we move forward to be cognizant that you know we will move as the changes move and Higley Unified School District is in great hands and ones will move forward we will take care of whatever we need to do to make what's best for our children and our community happen those are pretty much like my comment things are sometimes changing hourly we can be told something at nine o'clock A.M that's in place by five I mean things are changing hourly and I have to say I'm very proud of Education because typically education changes at a snail's pace and this has not allowed us to do that and you guys have done an amazing job but like you said our community needs to remember things change all the time and I appreciate all the work that everyone's doing and that we're checking multiple places even the CDC has contradictory information on their website so we can only try and be as good as the information we have available to us and Mr Glover's trust and verify and so even our resources have kind of contradictory information and so we will try and make the best decisions for our kids in the best interest of them and we have to ask our community and our parents um it's absolutely imperative that they work with us and understand we need kids kept home if they're sick please don't dose them with Motrin or Tylenol because they have a fever and send them to school because you need to go to work I get it I understand you need to go to work figure out another alternative call somebody have a plan in place ahead of time because this is it's not a matter of if it is a matter of when and we're we're going to have to deal with that but we to help mitigate it as much as possible we need parents to help us and with what Mr rajovich said kids are low risk there's no doubt they are the low risk category but they are huge carriers and masks face Shields some type of face covering is important in these type of environments because while our kids may be low risk our teachers may not are medically Fragile Kids may not are you may have a kid in a class that has underlying medical conditions that as a child will not be low risk so we need to like Mrs Martin said give a little Grace be kind we need to not think of just ourselves The Mask isn't protecting ourselves it's protecting others and so we do need to keep that in mind so I want to to thank everyone for doing that and please just let's remember we need education our kids need to be back in school we need to be educating them properly I appreciate everything our staff did at the end of the school year last year we did what we could with what we had in the time we had we know it was not the best option so help us give the best education to our kids in this time and be responsible educate your kids and just be kind of others and we don't know anyone else's situation Madam president now it's just I'm going to wrap up would the board object to asking Dr Foley to pass along our gratitude and thanks to everybody who is part of the committee and who stayed really really late I didn't want to make this thing drag on for 10 minutes by thanking everybody is that would you would that you guys okay tonight the email will be sent you can do it in the morning or whenever you wake up tomorrow it's fine thank you I've heard about your like 12 30 a.m emails don't be doing that anymore no thank you so much go ahead um I was just wondering if we would be getting an update at the next board meeting as well I would assume that we'll be getting an update at the next morning meeting as well but president members of the board there will be continuous updates as things change and things move forward so that's a good piece for our community who may still be watching at 10 30 at night to know that we will be updating um as well the next board meeting and probably until uh July 27th July 26th at midnight we'll be making decisions I don't know it could happen um thank you again all for staying late tonight we very much appreciate your time thank you okay we're gonna um move on to 9.1 and I move that the board convene in executive session for discussion or consultation for legal advice with the governor's board attorney pursuant to ARS 38-431- I'm sorry .03 A3 and ARS 38-431.03 A4 a second all those in favor aye aye motion carries thank you foreign I move that we can reconvene in Open Session second all those in favor I I move that we adjourn the meeting second all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero good night or good morning

They are a comment regarding that. The state is only working on it. Regarding the GPS, many things are going to happen. You will see how there will be an agreement. Everyone who is in favor, say yes. Oh, if anyone opposes it, everything is complete. John's proposition, Superintendent, regarding the Superintendent's contract with the salary for 2020-2021. An emotion. Katy Molano, she is doing the sort, a discussion, a question. Ah, they are calling the people on the board. She says, she says no, she says no, no. 7 cu, 7 cu. The proposition passes, and the second proposition and the first proposition passes. Proposition E makes the proposition for the contract of the cabinet members for the year 2020.

They are looking at how the money will be distributed, how it will be distributed, and if the children return. They need to see how the money will be distributed. They have to work with the school regarding how the distribution of that money will be carried out. That is the intention. Thank you for the questions and always for your comments. I also want to express my gratitude for the exceptional work, and Silva is thanking you for the funding resources, for what is earned and reserved, or saved, this year. Some things are the same, some things are not the same as last year because of the things that have happened since winter began until now. Right now, in the world we are living in, he wants to be clear. A 1.5% budget is not much, but with respect to that, it is to see the contracts, they are understanding the system, the complications that will be carried out, and with all the decisions that will be made.

session for the high school and 11:30 to 2:30 for the p.m. session for the high school we we also we are running one accelerated course for the high school this summer and that will actually start on as soon as next Monday the 29th and will continue through July 30th and I know you know Kelly also has some summer programming and so she may want to also give an update thank you Kevin and we have approximately 250 students that are going to participate there students with special needs that will be participating in a virtual special education extended school year program what we have done is we have hired numerous special education teachers support staff occupational therapists physical therapists speech and language pathologists and counseling staff and we have device kids into small groups and they will be scheduled for at least an hour of virtual instruction a day with your special education teacher plus individual or small group sessions with all the related services staff and then in addition to that we will be also providing some online supported activities for reinforcement through the utilization of the Google classroom which was a model that we use during the school year they will have a you know very small group specialized to target on their needs and the really the sole purpose of the special education summer school program is to keep consistency with the scheduling and to avoid regression of skills for any of those students so I have to give a big thank you to my team the five special education supervisors have been working tirelessly along with myself to come up with 250 individualized unique schedules for every single kid that's participating so it's been a little different but we will certainly excited about it I think it'll go very well and what we tried to do is build off of a lot of the things that we put in place this year and we heard the feedback from students and parents and teachers as well on that virtual instruction the live instruction was really helpful and so we are putting a stronger emphasis and focus on that with some supplementary support and activities and we're copying very similar to the secondary model where they'll be an AM and PM session so the total time that we'll run it will be between 8 o'clock in the morning and 1 o'clock in the afternoon but students will be scheduled you know early morning or later morning based on the group that they're assigned to those individual schedules will be mailed out to parents on Monday of next week and teachers will get their class lists and assignments by Friday of this week so I'm excited I think it'll go very well but it certainly has been a unique undertaking this does anyone having a question for Carolyn thank you Carrie ok I think yeah I just wanted the board to be aware that we they call it the kinetic association for athletics CRS see they have with the core we so socialization of high school athletics which means they'll have conditioning and that is to begin July 6th they'll be able to high school with that requirement then the high school along with ship service training our ad and others have been meeting with the nurses and also word flickin saw consultation with the city they set up rules and regulations on safety and so those will be published and given to parents but we just wanted you to be aware that on the July 6 we're gonna they're gonna start seeing athletes which is probably telling all of us they fully expect they have some kind of a season next year whether they're spectators not that's another thing but so that's gonna begin July 6th at Danbury high school there's a morning session and then there's a break for cleaning what-have-you and then the high school will then be reoccupied with another group so that's 32 on July 6th will that be all or just football are we talking just what no no no I believe it's all these lakh people's rest are all any of the kids I want to come actually yeah that's my youngest he's voluntary participation for any of the sports so both the coach it is as well as the student want to volunteer to participate so it's open to all and it will probably assume most of the athletics happy conveyed to the athletes to sign up day calf they have a protocol that they'll be let me just actually I just took it off my agenda I'm sorry let me go back to it I've been asking for what they would they what they're doing Kathleen is there like for example Tuesday a 23rd Dobie athletic staff mean jury duty information with all damn very high school coaches the athletes the trainings will be there on the 24th the information would be shared through the damn very high school website so that all athletes and parents would know last week next week put out Louisville call to Denver High School community what information those students in participating week of the 3rd use of social media at all that week for Denver high school parents that's reparation of the first summer session so they have an outreach plan starting with the orientation of the coaches we have discussion on hiring update where we are since we're in the last meeting yes please so welcome to the last meeting we need midway the first meeting of next year with hiring we're now kind of just starting to ramp up hiring season as many of you might remember as our discussions about enrollment we've done some of elementary teachers in particular to try to measure the ebb and flow of enrollment around the district so that process of relocating and transferring elementary teachers is more or less complete at this point I think everybody's pretty happy with where they're going and so we're in the process of getting those folks settled and that was something that I did in close collaboration with MEA dan Barry and we had some volunteers and so that has all run pretty smoothly as a result there's not going to be a whole lot of elementary hiring it's something very unusual that I don't really clean before there were very few elementary positions we're in the process right now of trying to fill some of the harder to fill a secondary position school level and in special education and as I've mentioned in earlier meetings we are onboarding naturally so my team is doing everything either via email or direct links online and we're actually trying to get ID cards done remotely as well now so we're making the most of our newfound situation and trying to get everybody in as quickly as we can so it'll be a nice know I say this every way it looks like it'll be a later hiring new dress than in years going forward or an papist and we're happy that we haven't had to lose anybody we haven't had any layoffs or furloughs so that's been a really good part of the process summer school employees are all in 100 and those folks have all been transitioned into their new positions and they're all ready to go for the start of summer school as well so we're in kind of full hiring swing now that's where my group is before I leave my report this caracal you have anything to add so you know I was last meeting Cara I did just a little bit her school conversing and I just wanted to let the board know you know you may get some parents this summer asking a we know what they can do with their child and what kind of programming and you know there are definitely limited options somewhere out there because of what's going on but please refer them to the k-12 interactive site it is updated with grade level suggestions for the practice we're highly suggesting the kids continue to use you know what we what's their parents can be assured that that what's there is vetted certainly they're they're bombarded with lots of programs right now that they see on the internet but they're not sure which ones are appropriate which ones are high quality which ones are standards aligned and so you know our team has done that work additionally there are the programs that students normally use during the year we usually close those licenses down and we do a lot of RIRA stirring in the summer but we're leaving those licenses open longer through August 7th so kids can continue to practice and we won't roster next year students with all of those licenses like I Excel arrest kids imagine learning things like that that they're already using we won't do that we won't roll that up and reset that until August so this way kids will have a seamless transition they're able to keep the glaad tops this summer so just you know if you get you know parents or community members who do ask about that you can you know definitely refer them back to that website as a safe place to get some good suggestions for a little practice that's appropriate okay Kelly you good nothing additional for me just the update on okay just to the board are it looks as though our enrollment has kind of slowed down remember last week the week whatever was accelerated so we're kind of like I know we didn't in August yet right but right now it it hasn't accelerated so so much it's kind of slowed down I did if you permit me to make a comment here because of the opening remarks from the parents we won't have time to talk I think part of the board's responsibility in mind is to give notice when things are going to happen in the district that is regarding student comportment our other rules and regs and I believe you know in the cases of the grading into high school which we knew would be very very difficult for a number of reasons we did put folks on notice however it was done it was a very difficult decision to do if you could recall the state was very explicit about equity and access that grading should not have occurred that it should have been a pass/fail but we went the extra step and I'm gonna like Kara spent a few minutes explaining that and why and we knew there would be some positive and negatives about it and I do understand that so Tara do you want to make a few comments sure sure and so you know just just as to remind the group that we did offer students the choice of either choosing their numerical GPA or selecting to opt into the pass/fail system and so you know the the one thing that was clear is that you had to choose a system and then it was up to the student to do that and of course they you know would receive guidance from their parents or teachers to to help them make those decisions and students were given a form to fill out with deadlines and dates we did state that the DLP's that the DLS would not impact GPA so those you know and we held true to that and so if students opted into that this particular quarter and attention a semester depending on the way that it worked they would you know that would not impact the GPA it would basically freeze where they left off after first semester and that what would only be determined was whether or not the students received credit for that course so if the student failed they would not receive credit for the course they would have to retake so they had to do enough to to pass the course and to satisfy the course requirements to get the pass if students wanted the numeric they had to in your system and just to kind of correct the I know we there was a couple questions about class rank we are going to run class rank and so that will you know that will affect everyone class rank is important for a variety of reasons which is one of the reasons why we also wanted to make sure that that new students had an option for numeric grade because there's a whole lot of reasons beyond what's happening now for that in terms of college in terms of scholarship opportunities in terms of different requirements from from programs that are very highly competitive that one that may want to see that so that was why we went the extra mile to offer both systems it was very complicated it was there was a you can imagine with the number of students and the number of teachers in the number of courses you know going through all of those to kind of make sure that the data was clean that there weren't any mistakes you know everything is hand hand clicked by each teacher grade each number each comment and so there's a lot of work on the back end we were not able to run class rank until all of that proofing was done however it was important to get the transcripts out to the colleges by their deadlines so the transcripts did go out they just went out for class rank is being run in the next day or two and that will be updated in PowerSchool and if anyone wants to get an updated transcript all they have to do is simply request it and we can have them come and take it up in the office so we you know we have managed to figure it all out it just took a little bit longer than it normally does under the circumstances and the team at the high school worked incredibly hard to get that to get that done and the data department and worked incredibly hard to verify everything on the back end and to make sure that that was cleaned up we are not running in honor oh we did not think that that was an appropriate thing to do not all kids had the same opportunity in that regards for class rank students did have equal opportunity to make those decisions to preserve their GPA prior to this and so we felt that that was equal so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear you know we felt that we've offered a variety of options that was in the best interest of the students and that was fair for everybody and honored everybody situation to the best of our ability Cara I have a question about rank sure what what lets in I'm thinking nothing so much for seniors I'm thinking more for like freshmen or sophomores or juniors they take a semesters worth of pass/fail grades now that effectively adds that many more credits to where they are it makes it that much harder for them to move their class rank going forward well so what did you know you're betting you're batting a harder to move your batting average and August that it is in April sure but what it also did is it preserved where they were before prior to the disruption so if you had a particularly if you to be you know average of a fee you know going in you you base if you entered into the pass/fail system you kind of froze that if you in the numeric system if you were you know you wanted to choose into the numerix and that numerical grade would feed into the the first semester grade and your GPA would be averaged out cumulatively and that would be weighted and fed into class rank so you had an opportunity to to really to improve your status if you chose to the numerical tenth grades were higher than they were the first semester so basically you either preserved where you were where you left off or you were able to you know the enter your numeric sin to feed into that that GPA which feeds into class rank so it was an opportunity for kids you know kids made the choice based on what was best for them and their situation thanks you're welcome thank you I know we generally don't comment but I thought it was fair that the parents at least heard the border the rationale it was it was like everything else I think you know it was difficult did the end was very difficult with the grading I will tell you that but the verification process was was over the top but that had to happen to be fair to everyone that it was accurate so I need to publicly thank all of those folks that did that with Dan Donovan and his team and the registrar's and everyone else though in counselors so thank you I will move on if it's okay madam chairman yes okay so summit I think I said something to the board but last week I think it was Monday I got a call right after aboard meaning that they would like a representative that walk were to walk through up at the summit I eat a matrix and the state was looking at the ideas whether of getting a building for to accommodate the enrollment that we have asked the city to be mindful of based on the demographers work and that we needed some space and then adjust building a place well the idea of purchasing a place was something that the state wanted to come down and actually take a look so we met with them on Monday and I'm gonna let Cara take it from here because she was there and then I do I have some comments at the end about some things I think the board should think about Joe I did write Joe this morning in this afternoon as well Facilities Committee because I think we're going to have to have a committee meeting and discussion with that but you should hear a little bit cara cara was also invited to visit with I guess the department after the Monday meeting in Hartford just to talked with them the meeting on Monday we had most if not all of our delegation state delegation was in attendance they took a tour as well and then the next day there was a private conversation with the department who would be looking at reviewing the plan if they're going to approve the funding and mr.

Selar or dr. Kazmir oh so my question is this I know that we're sort of in the planning stages to see if we can get this building you know put together for us and and work out the logistics of how the state might reimburse for it their concern about sort of some of the limitations that will be in that space as a result of making those decisions to do the build first or to do the planning for the build first as opposed to you know sort of having a more not a fixed curriculum because I know that's like a longer process but like a more you know a better idea of what the the areas of study are gonna be so you can sort of build the space around that to some degree one seconds to tier one of them Kate and Joe the numbers will require another pot so the original thinking of two pods wouldn't been sufficient so physically Kate it'll be a largest structure now I'll let Cara talk about the other piece you know that the we had some conversation around the 612 piece being tricky right because we're talking about you know keeping kids separate from high school kids and and then so like the broader vision and I'm gonna get to your question about the building first before you know knowing what's going in there the broader vision is that ninth graders possibly eighth graders but ninth graders would receive an exploratory college and career pathway course that exposes all kids to different pathways they understand what those pathways can can lead to not just at entry level but sort of a mid level and then an endgame right a bachelor's degree or a high tech certification and in something that allows them access to another level of job so you know one of the things that we want to make sure that we do with the pathway program is that it has some teeth in it so kids graduate like a CNA program with some other certification besides just a high school diploma so you can enter the workforce you've got skills you have a leg up you've got some contact hours done you're certified you can go right to the workforce or you can go off to college you can go to school for nursing or for a medical you know we want to do biology because you want to be a doctor someday but in the meanwhile you're working in the hospital you know so there's multiple tiered options so these we're looking for pathways that have some teeth in it that give kids choices when they graduate so in that exposure to those pathways and those choices and those industry recognized credentials happen through sort of the course exploratory course overview in ninth grade and then we'd want to see students have a knowledge base enough to choose a pathway for 10 11 12 and so you know this space has been designed for sort of a to accommodate the middle school space crunch as well so it's turning into a 612 Academy so in order to you know you'd have to consider you know sixth graders coming in seventh graders eighth graders might not necessarily choose the pathway that is located in that location right so that location could be prime for let's just say it's architecture and design let's just pretend that that's what it is they have to be able to make a choice and maybe Danbury high school has the CNA program they have the culinary program they have a lab a finance or about health and bioscience program there so you would want to see I mean in my vision you would want to see students you know having an opportunity to have a choice of the pathways at KU choice so it wouldn't be an automatic rollup sixth seventh and eighth grade once you're there you roll up to that location but rather that there are options for you um so in terms of the build we definitely see that location as an opportunity for STEM related pathways and in all of the STEM related pathways that we saw we went to Nashville all them include some sort of some type of design projects builds space you know they need project rooms in space and so that's one of the things I did mention to Tony that no matter which way we go to it we will need project room space we will need certain types of electrical things wired in so that machinery in of certain kinds and so we have to have sort of a ambidextrous project spaces that we can kind of build with the future in mind and so he he I felt comfortable that he understood that Tony was a huge very excited about this I know we actually enjoyed my conversations with him I think he's just as excited about as I am in terms of thinking about the possibilities of design so I do feel that we're gonna stay close enough on this to make sure that that both project spaces and that those builds are we'll meet the requirements of a stem aligned pathway Academy okay thanks and then it actually brings up another question then so for the middle school piece of this school you're talking about the ninth grade doing an exploratory program which is similar to what they do at Abbott tech and I think that's it's a really good exposure education wise and and sort of helps kids really hone in on something that's going to work for them so I think that that's a very successful model to use and I'm assuming there be caps on these different areas so that you know the highest you know forty kids or fifty kids from each you know section automatically get that as it if they want that as their first choice they get first first grab at it or something like that well that's I mean that's we'd have to work that out in the em eight different schools handle in different ways and you know the the the the goal is to have enough really great pathways that there's a there's something great for everyone and to really it's to make sure there's a good fit and when and when there's a demand right this is it this would be student driven so if you of course experiencing a greater demand in certain pathways and others you know rather than capita you know similar to the way we do course enrollment how do we how do we find ways to expand it and if there's pathways that are not meeting the needs of students and families then you know how do we look to to to realize okay just just to add on that I think a point that came up and it was a hard moment for me is that try to create an academy that is not mutually exclusive to Denver in high school so there would be opportunities at Denver High School for youngsters to move in and transition if they change their mind on one of the pathways so they would be working through those departments which which is really a great which is it just creates more of an opportunity for kids to make a choice instead of narrowing that's always been my worry is to narrow them to two quickly when they're just exploring well then they can open up so I think that's something I found refreshing as an idea that we this is not a program that's a high school I'm sorry it's not a high school it's a program the kids will get a damn very high school diploma just as the board has permitted ace and reach the kids want to participate in athletics they can but if they want to go to the culinary there we don't have yes you can do that you know things like that and that's it opens up venues I'm sorry Cara de interrupts oh no that's fine there are so many details to work out that's kind of far down the road and coming up with those decisions but I have do you have any thoughts on the the middle school piece and how that might relate to yeah I think I think the more that we can do in stem the better and I think foundational stem work for all kids is important we have a STEM Academy at West Side that's very popular and and we should we should we should take heed right and say you know what that's it that's it's it's also feeds into multitude of some of the pathways that we're also talking about so how do we build more computer science and and and continue to model a lot of times what has happened you know West Side we've had some programs that have been over there that we start off as you know this is kind of a West Side only fitting only to a few years later adopt components of it into all of the middle schools because we you know we've run the model it looks good it's engaging it's responding well to it and so that tends to happen with new programs is that if when they're successful you should replicate and grow and and you know I see the that proof that would be an opportunity to kind of grow out some some more stem opportunities for kids and foundational stem courses that could serve a variety of pathways excellent Thanks just a quick question I know this is very preliminary but is there has there been any thought about admission the admission process you know instead of the usual lottery system you know could it be like an application admissions I'm sorry was that discussed or yep the board I think that's a board level conversation and and I think it's a pretty hard Congress we've permitted choice and not a merit-based yeah their skill I just doesn't mean the kids are unskilled I don't mean it that way it's you know if mom wants you to go there because of a B or C and you don't have the skills but you want to take a risk what we've tried to do just like high school getting the APS and other give the youngster an opportunity so it was open to all youngsters and it was a look at the draw I mean that's been our our role to get kids in there we were more concerned about balance racially and when we did that you know then there was that the kids wouldn't be successful we knew just giving them the opportunity the right teachers that almost 99.9 of our kids could do things so that was the only thinking Rachel ya know it's very exciting I'm excited by this project yeah we all want to teach there okay madam sure um I'm just because there was some conversation about continuing discussions I know we're technically done for the year I am available for sites and facilities at any time over the summer we will we need to be yeah whenever I went Joe whatever you want to call a meeting dr.

that's why it has to come to the board for approval because it's a prior year bill I'm with you any other questions comments or concerns okay all those in favor aye motion carries five zero okay we're going to move on to 6.8 and this is um Mrs good the motion is on the um it's a recommendation and emotion so do I do the motion or do I make a recommendation that we talk about it and then make a motion at the end of our discussion you can do it either way I can do it either way strictly according to Robert's Rules you're supposed to have a motion on the floor before you the discussion discussion so that's how I would recommend that you do it thank you very good I make a motion that the governing board accepts the donation of a night statue from the United Kingdom boosters second okay we're going to have a discussion about the Statue um as you can see we did get a packet on the statue I'm not even sure exactly where to start but I thought I'd start with a um a little timeline per se of how the statue came to be and how it came to the board tonight and if I have if I need to have a correction Dr Thomason from a meeting that you've attended or if somebody else has something else they'd like to interject please don't feel bad for um interrupting me I will not feel bad don't feel bad so um it was about last year about September um a statue email went out about and I think that's included in our packet the email went out talking about a statue in that paperwork there was no formal paperwork for a fundraiser for the Statue there was no um size scale scope cost in that email that went out there was no I didn't see any emails that came back with any other further information I think at that time the United booster started attending our football games and selling bricks for a statue again no president Keeler members of the board I do believe the the brick um sales came at a later time I'm not sure that they were early on Susan I do know that the paperwork for the cells or the bricks came in February right but Mrs day stated in a meeting that she was at the football games selling bricks or the statues that she was there advertising for the Statue to buy a brick correct I believe that is correct okay just clarifying thank you for that so sometime in January a flyer did come out in an official flyer came out to the entire um I guess Higley High School stating that there was a a way to purchase bricks and there was a way that you could buy a 50 brick a there was all different prices and then there was even larger donations thousand dollar five thousand ten thousand dollars so that came out in January and that kind of perked my interest because I was seeing a very large dollar amount of donations so that in January I reached out to Dr Thomason and we decided to have a meeting with United Kingdom to further discuss how this statue came to be at that point the um the dollar amount had been given out to the community as well so February 10th we had a meeting it was Mrs Reese myself Mr Fields the United Kingdom boosters there were several ladies in attendance and Dr Thomason at that meeting there was a lot of discussion about how the statue came to be but again there was no formal paperwork done at that time for approving bricks to sell for a statue nor was there any approval from the district or Administration approving said statue and this statue is correct me if I'm wrong Dr Thomason it is 12 feet high 12 and a half feet how does president Kayla members of the board um the actual size of the statue I have as um let's see with the base it's ten and a half feet high it is uh 126 inches for the Statue if the base were included on it um it was two feet base if I remember correctly it is it is a 20 uh 20 32 inch space okay so a little over two feet and the total cost that we have seen on the paperwork is ninety thousand dollars correct president Keeler members of the board with the the cost of the statue and also the base it's an estimated hundred thousand dollars hundred thousand dollars so sometime at our meeting on the February 10th we had discussed um like you know how much they had been um fundraising for said statue with the bricks and I believe at that meeting it was about twenty thousand dollars is that what you remember too Mysteries um I don't recall what they had raised at that point we talked about the grant at that but what had at that meeting it was indicated 20 000 had already been paid towards the statue maybe that's where I had my twenty thousand um we also discussed placement and things like that there was a lot of discussion at that meeting and then um at that meeting there was another conversation that we were going to hold a community meeting on February 25th so that the United Kingdom could come out to the entire community and share with them the vision the information everything they could about the Statue that was the date I believe it was February 20th that the paperwork was finally signed for getting permission to the district to approve said statue we did have a meeting on February 25th with all of the community members that wanted to come in attendance and again there was a lot of discussion Mr Glover was there Mrs Wilson was there lots of discussion on how this statue came to be who whose idea was it the funding how it it went from I think Dr Thomason even has the paperwork the seven to nine foot then it went to a 12-foot um there was just there's a lot of communication so with that I'd like to open it up to anybody else that has concerns questions or anything they'd like to discuss about the statute I would like to start first of all um I wasn't part of I don't understand why other board members are being involved on this statute decision I've been on this board for for six years now playground equipment things like that I don't see board members sitting on committees to prove playground equipment for the schools this is way out of our league okay I'm not here to worry about this or that and and statues and things like that this is not for us to be involved with and meeting on all these type of things and and I wasn't shared with any of this that you guys went to all these meetings and had conversations I didn't get any memos on that and I think this is kind of Auto league on this um what I'd like to say is that um I like to if Allison day is out there watching I'd like to tell her thank you for what you have done Higley is fortunate to have an individual in our community to make a difference in this way and all the hurdles that she has gone through and to to talk to businesses and all these things I applaud her I mean this is incredible the amount of work that this lady has done and that's what makes Higley special and and to have a statue over at Higley High School that's going to be for generations to come the statue is going to be there so so I applaud you Alice a day out there and for your leadership and for making a difference in the Higley Unified School District and I wish we had more people just like her to make this a wonderful school district and uh you know what we need to move on let's approve this you know I guess I'm from the Midwest and when somebody gives you a gift you say thank you very much and you move on okay and that's what I told my children when you get a gift you say thank you very much and you move on and for this conversation about all where is it going to be located oh how many feet all this these people had our a whole committee and they've got this together and they brought this forward let's just say thank you very much wherever they put it and let's move on we have a lot of other things to cover here tonight okay guys and and um that's I just want to say that thank you very much and let's move on okay Mrs Wilson I was a former PTO president as you all have been aware I'm no I'm not shy to share um I read every thing that was given to me from the district I went to The District board meeting where they talked about ptos how and essentially this is what a booster is I will use those terms interchangeably I'm sorry if anybody wants to use booster versus PTO I think they're very close I went to every meeting I whatever you guys told me to do I did it there was no mention of paperwork when giving a gift I will tell you that because I did it I looked online uh at least four years ago when I was PTO president there was no paperwork for me to fill out that I was given when I gave a gift I gave gifts I went back actually into the closet to look did I do any paperwork I did not I did give gifts over a thousand dollars I looked that up I never did paperwork you guys never approved it um it was radios in fact uh that was a safety concern they needed him I bought them um I think we've all worked our tails off for ptos I've heard Mr ratovich say that he worked for citrus sales Mrs Reese did her fair share at the band concerts Mrs Kaylor at uh Cortina sorry I almost said Centennial and Sossaman and Mr Glover as a teacher you I'm sure have put in your fair share for time for ptos we want to take this gift we want to say thank you I'm going to have the sediment that Mr watovich said you say thank you um also I want to just uh I have like four pages on this I'm going to condense it down sorry that's been in my heart for a little bit we've all talked about this um in our separate groups of course and there's been conversations regarding it um I want to say that if we are going to have stipulations on our gifts that we need to make it very in writing have a our our whole board has always been process in procedure I've never seen a process and procedure on this I would love to have known that this is good gave a speech and told us what we can and cannot do it was a lot of Finance what you don't want to do for PTO you do not want to embezzle money and that's what I came away with from that meeting I never came away with a sheet that said this is what you have to do to give a gift to the school so I'm putting that out there I think if we're gonna make if we're gonna say no to this gift you need a process and procedure and it's not there right now I will be voting yes on the Statue and I did read all the emails that everyone sent even though I did not reply to them after a certain time there was so many and I did read them all up until four o'clock so you were heard your voices were heard I've listened this is all I got sure Mrs Wilson reference I just like to make a comment on our emails um I did receive a lot of emails and it was 98 in reference to supporting this statue president Kaylor yes Mrs Reese just wanted to go through my notes Mrs Wilson says we have notes and notes and um just so Mr watovich understand we we didn't sit on a committee for this as board members we were invited to a conversation um regarding the statue that it was coming um the Higley Community was unaware of it information was posted on Facebook about it and when people started asking questions about what is it how big is it where is it going those were all removed off of Facebook and they Mrs day had indicated she was advised to remove anything off of Facebook so it can stay up stay positive even though people were just asking questions where my concern is and I agree as far as gifts and where my concern is is that um if I want to give you a gift I can't just go put it in your yard that would need to be a conversation we would have I can't just go put 10 11 foot something in your in your front yard because it's a gift and there was limited conversation with site Administration site Administration did not know the size the scope they had no idea that what was coming other than we want to work on a statue the thought of a statue promoting their school I am all for something of this size creates additional expense cost for the district and during that conversation um a lot of information kept changing and um part of it was that there was supposed to be a grant but then determined that Grant was not for the Statue it was actually for um Landscaping and it was also stated that student council had approached United Kingdom in that community meeting it indicated that student council had approached the United Kingdom about the Statue when in our meeting on the 10th it was the United Kingdom who approached student council to ask them for a donation not that it would be a not that it would be their senior gift so then um it was also discussed that student council had indicated this had been talked about for years and speaking to some student council students who graduated in 2019 there was no no mention of a statue Within their time at Higley so it wasn't a long-term thing my concern is that we have um no communication with Administration that they're not working together and I understand your comments Mrs Wilson but as PTO if you're giving a gift of a permanent structure you work with your Administration when ptos do a gift for shade structures they work with their Administration they work with their site councils they determine the size the district has a say in what color how much how big it can be things like that so you work with your site Administration prior to a purchase or fundraising for an item can I interject here I saw an email that said that they had there was no it's in our board doc there's an email and it even listed the people and it had Mr fields on it and what I think Mrs Reese's stating is there was no details there was no size scope cost um there was my iPad just failed I know um so that was even during some of the conversations we had there there wasn't even a size and a scope given to anyone until February 25th so our conversation on February 10th included Mr fields and included new United Kingdom and even at that time on February 10th they still didn't have details they couldn't share exactly all the details of it so site Administration was unaware of the size the scope what it would take with a an item this large not only does it need to include your site Administration but we also have to include the town of Gilbert it's large it has to be mounted and so my concern and like I said even on our meeting and on February 10th Mr fields indicated the only thing he knew was that United Kingdom wanted to do a statue he had no idea what the size was he had no idea what the cost was um the sale of the bricks to fundraise for it was not approved until February when um they had been in fact selling them um and then through that in um in what was approved on February 20th was for the fundraising and then through conversation and and investigation that there was no approval for the initial fundraiser no one had approved the statue and no one gave authorization for this process to start I agree we we need our our PTO members our booster members we need them to help support our schools but we need to work with our schools and we need to have communication and approval and work together in items especially of this nature this is going to be a permanent structure on our campus and when you're not having any conversation regarding details foreign places it it can't even go because of its size but you haven't even worked with your Administration and through the conversation um an investigation excuse me in March I was even advised that the district was going to stop this process and deny it so um that they were going to contact Mrs day during that second week of spring break since they were out of town but then we all know covet came and and then further discussion indicated that it would need to come to the board so my concern is that this was done without the approval for fundraising on the campus it was done without conversation of details and working through that with the site Administration so um I do like the thought of a statue I do think that that can bring value this thing is very large it does present DET or difficulties to the campus as well as the district and that it was not done in conjunction with the site Administration those are are what my concerns are quite to follow up on some of these all the questions all the concerns that I'm hearing from board members these questions should be asked of your superintendent and administration this is not our board it's not our business here people I'm not going to sit here at a board meeting and discuss playground equipment and I don't like the color of the playground equipment the playground equipment is too big this is not our business if you have a question you question Dr Dr Thomason about this today we're getting a gift thank you very much and Mr ratovich I hear you and we did have these conversations with Dr Thomason and like I stated it was in March advice to me that the the district was not going to approve this and that it was going to be handled at the district level and that it would not be coming to the board foreign did you want to say something oh okay um I lost my train of thought now you want to go because I just lost my train and thought well I don't want to ruin it looks like I'm the deciding vote for a change [Laughter] you want me to go all right well I will so um well I agree with my colleagues at the far end of the of the table um you know this is so weird 2020 here we have it's the year that statues are tearing apart communities um you know we have to move forward whatever the vote is and I just want to remind everybody you know I've lost more than my fair share of votes uh but we we leave and we support the decision of the majority that's the way serving on a board works and it's uh it's we have to find a path forward so I want to talk about that in a minute but my questions are similar to Mr watovich is this thing going to be safe does it require maintenance and ongoing funding those questions have been answered for me yes it's it's it will be safe um and any funding these guys have agreed to pay for so it's I'm not spending any Higley unified tax money on it and I'm inclined that that that's what shapes my vote um you know the there's no way to measure the opportunity costs of a statue so does that mean that our bathrooms aren't going to be clean because someone donated money to us we have no way of knowing that at all and uh it's a waste of time to even speculate about that so personally as a citizen is this something the cost that I would contribute to no and I didn't but as a board member hey thank you that's that's lovely we have some lacks processes and it's it's bad practice to pick and choose when we realize that some of our processes aren't being followed we have to dig deeper and we got to fix that system um but this is this has been a mess and I'm not calling anybody out by name specifically but um very ugly mud slinging back and forth social media is absolutely no way to govern and I just want to chastise you know a lot of people the people that emailed me thank you you put your name on it I know who you are I read them like you did thank you but social media blasting out and trying to legislate I mean look at the look at our government officials that try to legislate on social media it's not working out very well and we should really stop doing that and we should set a good example for our kids on social media this is why thank God Facebook is done because people are mean so you know we tell our kids when we teach them is what you're writing kind is it constructive and helpful and would you say it to somebody's face and as a community I think we need to be reminded of that if you're not willing to say it to somebody's face then maybe it's best you don't type it or think of another way to phrase it and that goes to a lot of people in this I think personally the kids that I saw have seen and talked to acted way better than the adults and you can people can be as mad at me as they want to be for saying it but that is my perception those poor kids wanted to have some for the end of a school year and adults took away that opportunity for them and it would have been nice uh you know I'm not a statue person like I said but that's what they wanted and you know this telling kids to not go for something because it's grandiose we are going to have as a society huge problems to solve and if we tell kids who just it's too much don't even try then we're not doing ourselves as a society any favors either so that I guess I'm way off off point here but we need to make sure that our principals and ptos do a better thorough job and have a better thorough understanding of when they want to undertake a project because this has been disruptive to everybody and to this entire community and I think we need to vote and move past it so understand the frustrations on all sides but um it's not my if that's what people want to give their money to thank you very much I will follow up with as a parent I feel like Mr Glover as a board member I have to wear this hat and as a parent my kid is over there and has told me not to vote for this I am wearing a different hat and I'm a board member first at this point and that will be my caveat to that I do think we can I talked to Mrs good we can approve this with the I don't know what word did you give me yesterday you gave me some fancy word that we could approve this with that the United Kingdom has to maintain and I don't know what you told me exactly and I should have written it down well both scheduled and unexpected like at the moment I'm just I'm is a condition but I don't think that was the word but there was a condition that we can could have been a contingency but that really doesn't fit very with the word that we can put with this that they have to maintain if there were to be something wrong some kids were to damage it in any way or the maintenance we can put that contingency in correct this is good yes okay just as that's some thought for it sorry no so um some of my concerns is the placement of this statue um they would like it they they're some of their in their email or in their packet um one was to remove some cafeteria tables and put it in the courtyard Dr Thomason said that is absolutely not possible it is not it's too heavy and too big to be in our Amphitheater so at this point Dr Thomason the only place that you have told me that this statue can be placed and that is if it is approved would be out underneath the scoreboard now the scoreboard is the north entrance of our campus and that is where our 6A football team is going to continue to enter correct or no Am I Wrong president Keeler I think that there may have been a misunderstanding I would say that there are some other places we can put it in the courtyard would not be an appropriate place for it but um back of the second side we would have to at the cost of the booster club reinforce the ground so it wouldn't it's not that it's too heavy right now we could not just place it there the concrete would have to be busted up we would have to get an engineer and it would have to be placed there with the proper footings so I think there was a little bit of misunderstanding there okay um and again I go back to and I know I understand your position on this Mr ratovich um I've spoken to a lot of teachers on the campus a lot of students on the campus and there seems to be a lot of negativity of having this on their campus they don't think it's bringing value they want it for Spirit um but there's been other students in the past at Higley High School that have wanted to plant trees and they were denied because the cement being torn up would cost the district too much money or the club too much money so they couldn't do that so there is absolutely something to be said about the district having a say what does come on our campus and what does not come on our campus and so again I go back to this was created this was fundraised for this was built without any formal approval of any administrator any District employee is that correct Dr Thomason uh president Kaylor members of the board there was some knowledge of a statue but but the cost and the size and the scope of the statue was not brought to my attention until uh the 2020 school year or the 2020 fiscal or the year January or February so I guess that goes back to my concern of a policy we were talking at our Retreat policy and procedure and there is a form which you saw Mrs Wilson in the thing that has to be filled out when something of that scale is brought to a campus and they do work with Administration and they do have that conversation there have been gaga gaga courts donated again you work with the administration on where that's going to be before fundraising even begins and this was just done a little bit backwards for me completely and so I'm concerned about the president that I will be saying by saying yes to this when nothing was followed that is out there and Mrs good I know that you do have those meetings with the boosters but there are definitely forms that people fill out for having Food Truck Friday or any kind of fundraiser and things like that those forms are within our ptos correct as far as I know the forms that you're talking about that have to be filled out for the food trucks and some of the um carnivals and those activities those are Insurance matters and those documents go to our insurer they don't go to them but the insurer sets up the kind of information that you need to be to give so those are the forms that are used they're the only ones I know about president kaler Mr Mr Holland we do also have another form if you're going to have a food truck Friday it's an exception form that they have to file that we keep one filed um as a requirement with the Department of Education what is an exception form what is that actually um to stay in compliance with our national school lunch program okay thank you president Kaylor um and that's the joy of this board is that we have different perspectives and we can agree and we can agree to disagree and Mr Glover I you chuckle you know I agree with you more than I then I don't and um to me I think social media is the devil I I believe in keyboard courage and and I agree and I don't I don't use social media and and I agree with you if you can't say it to somebody don't type it um and I completely agree with that um we have talked a lot about processes and um the thought of being able to bring anything onto our campus we are a public school campus to bring anything onto our campus without working with your Administration without your Administration approval um we have we have denied other things coming onto campuses so um I agree that gifts are amazing and I don't disagree that Mrs day has worked really hard on this my concern is putting something of this size of this dollar amount without working with your Administration and without getting the proper fundraising approved um we we did not have that information before this process started um the question came about is what happens if they don't they haven't raised the entire amount for this statue so they're committed to this statue what happens if the fundraising doesn't raise the entire amount who's on the hook for that Mrs day told us they would be that they made that personal guarantee um that and Mrs Wilson you know that's a not a good practice of fundraising that you make sure you raise the funds that you are clear of what you're purchasing how it's going to go like I said I can't just go plop something in your yard because I want to give it to you there's rules there you have an HOA I'm sure they wouldn't approve that and so I would work with you and I would say Mrs Wilson I'd really like to give this to you how how can we make this work and um without working with the administration other than knowing they wanted a statue um is where my concern is and with Mrs kaler I setting the Precedence of I can bring anything I choose to do so to donate to a campus without their approval um doesn't sit well with me because it could be inappropriate and this is uh this is a precedence of that so um but I hear everything you are all saying I wish this process had been done differently I wish that that the boosters had worked with Administration that we could make sure it's what the school wants as we've all heard from people we have heard both sides of it um and without the process of working with the the school in the administration for something of this size this magnitude that like Mrs good said we can put a caveat into is very it's going to ultimately um be an issue and and that's why Mr Glover this is before us today it has been a huge distraction for six months and we do have more important things to to focus on I'd like to say in closing real quick um the board members that have some concerns your concerns are with the Higley Unified School District administration okay these people our boosters are volunteers they're not paid okay so so you're sitting there going oh they didn't ask this they didn't ask this come on these people are volunteers we are blessed that they're in our community that they're going to give us a statue and now you're somebody saying well maybe they should put some more money if they're going to clean it come on we don't say this as somebody bringing a playground equipment and saying five years if it breaks down this is ridiculous okay let's move on thank you very much for the Statue let's move on they actually did agree to to uh help pay for the ongoing maintenance which is a minimum okay but they did so all these there is no Higley unified we're not ex the board is not expending any money for this and people need to be really understanding of that but we do have I mean I printed them out policy kcd-r and kcd we do have this and this is the reminder if we learn anything from tonight that this the cabinet needs to review with the schools to be sure that there is a very very clear understanding because God help anyone if this happens like this again it should not we have these policies and we should follow them and it's just sometimes policies come to mind and you got to remind people that we have them for a reason thank you Mr Glover and I guess that's where I'm just going to land is that I don't believe that policy and procedure was followed I don't even think best practices was followed when it comes to fundraising before any type of approval so again this should not have come to the board this could have stopped at the district level when things were not followed according to our policy and procedure so but it is brought to us and it's brought to us tonight and that was my doing putting the agenda together because I do believe that moving forward reopening our schools and the safety of our community needs to be our Forefront I do appreciate all of our volunteers that work in our schools I was one of them for many years and I would still love to do some um in my ability as a board member as well I appreciate all the hard work that our volunteers do I appreciate our donors as well I just believe too that our donors need to know exactly what they're getting and what's happening and I believe that money was given to something that they didn't even know exactly those details and I don't think that's fair to a donor to be very honest I think donors should know exactly what are they donating to I've talked again to many of our staff who they are not in support of this statue and so just because of other reasons to them they didn't feel that they were included in any conversations on what spirit means to a school and and it went from a 20-year commencement statue and now it's the senior class gift there was lots of things that changed along the way for me personally as a parent just attending meetings as a parent but also as a board member I was given information one day it was this and then I the the district is going to you know deny it but now it's here so yes I agree that we just need to have a vote and move forward from here on however that goes any other comments just as a quick comment Mr ratovich I hear you and as a reminder we too are unpaid volunteers so um I get it we give our time our money and everything else as well so um we are also in that category and for some as Mr Glover always brings up we get beat up one way or another there's no doubt after this particular vote we are going to get beat up one way or another and we will it's this has been very decisive in our community and people are very passionate one side or another so we too are volunteers and we give our time and we do our due diligence and um and and we do sometimes take a beating for it so that's for sure and this is not one of those that can make everybody happy at the end of the day so any other questions or concerns should I add a contingency to my original motion this is good I I don't want a contingency on this we're here to accept the gift or not not start saying you know if it rains outside let's just move on with the gift please anybody else okay all those in favor aye those opposed nay nay motion carries 3-2 congratulations Higley you'll have a new Statue soon um future agenda items 7.1 we have some future agenda items already still coming you can look through our um things here how we prepare students Beyond life we change that wording from portrait of a graduate after our Retreat thank you Dr Foley is there anything anybody else would like to add for the future president Keeler members of the board yes Mr Dr Thomason yes at the next board meeting I would like to bring forward the proposal for the jewel lawsuit so that would be happening on the 15th should the board want to move forward with that thank you for that add that to the list thank you Mrs reach for finding that we talked about it but didn't vote on it uh that was what it was we had memory of Jewel and vaping we just didn't thank you for finding that Okay so um we are going to move on finally all those watching us online we are going to move to our work study which is going to be a presentation with Dr Foley on reopening of our schools we'll take a five minute break please thank you Brian are we ready thank you so much welcome back thanks for the little break um we are going to have a lovely update from Dr Foley and her team reopening Higley school task force will extra people be coming in there is going to be extra people that's why we have those desks set up in the back to keep them social distancing as Dr Dr Foley's task force included many people uh president kaler hope president kaler members of the board uh thank you uh for tonight we have an exciting presentation for you but I am also going to give you a precautionary tell so what you see and what you hear tonight is probably going to change we've done the very best we can to put together an incredible program for opening school next year but with that being said from last week to this week things have changed from the end of May to now things have changed three or four times so I do want to tell you that uh the precautionary tell for our teachers our students our staff we're doing the very best we can in an Ever Changing world of covid the task teams have worked very very hard kind of like with graduation we had plan A B C D E F G and so on and until we were able to do what we could for the Higley Unified School District to the best of our abilities and I thought that our our high schools pulled off an incredible High School graduation during the covid-19 situation and so tonight I just want to make sure that we enter with caution that we know what we say today may change tomorrow and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr Don Foley to start us with our presentation for preparing for the 2021 school year Dr Foley thank you Dr Thomas said lots of info information that we want to share with you and it's all going to center around the theme you'll see here our covid theme one of the things we want to share is that everything we say is yes subject to change but the preparation for being ready for whatever comes our way our team has been diligently working forward we're working forward towards and we'll be sharing with you tonight an overview of those things we want to also acknowledge that it truly that again at this time there are multiple perspectives views concerns and we are obviously open to hearing all of those things and sometimes we'll be forced to have decisions or communication that may not always be what you were hoping for or what you or or feel comfortable with and so we acknowledge and accept that we are committed to ongoing communication one of the things that this planning has allowed us to do and you'll kind of hear a timeline of what we're doing and what we're thinking about from multiple levels but what this will allow us to do is be better in our communication with more explicit details tonight we'll be able to provide some of that information one of the things is that this is we're going to require us to be nimble and be quick so you'll hear about versatile planning that's been happening not that predetermined decisions have been made but that either way we have to go we're ready to accommodate you'll hear tonight about safety and you'll hear about health and young Hillary about the role that our individuals our community members our students our families and their role in helping to help be part of the Safety and Security that we're putting in place for options and you're also going to hear about our dedication to high quality education with the options that we're providing a lot of work has happened since we started into the remote learning in March and so we'll talk a little bit about all kinds of options and things we're talking about also know that this is an overview the amount of work that has happened in these committees we could have multiple several hour studies on each one one of the things we want you to know is that we have used some common resources it's important to know that um this is the world is evolving the resources we're using continue to change what we learn one day evolves and shifts the next you know if we recall back in May you know the CDC first came out on May 5th with some guidance May 19th they created a Guidance the Ade started their task force on May 7th um June 1st was the first day that the road map was released fortunately we were involved when this Pro Higley had representation was involved in this process all along so we knew what resources were coming what models existed so we could use common tools what we are using in in Higley obviously is Arizona's road map to give us some guidance but then we're interpreting what does that mean for us in Higley utilizing National models and examples and our own hingley expertise on what will and won't work in our buildings and in our schools with our leaders on May 28th we brought our administrators together on a team's meeting and we rolled out the fact that this was going to be a marathon and this is going to be a Sprint and as we go in this is I mean this is not a Sprint this is a marathon I mean we're going to need to to get moving and get quick here and and work together and one of the things we talked about was that um we needed involvement across all levels so we started our task force on that day and we defined a framework for us to work in where we had uh Cabinet member Leaders with departments who created subcommittees who worked together to begin getting information discussions plans checklists ideas on concerns we brought all perspectives together and then we also had individuals who were advisory members who once a document a checklist a frequently Asked question or something was created we asked them to help provide feedback I will tell you that we've been work these the teams have been working really really hard because we can we could sit for days and have conversations about what we could do what should we do what might happen um but then we had to get busy with putting some pin pin to paper and ideas down and start creating work um and outline it so you will see here that our task teams from this framework there were areas so Ed Services had a test had test teams and they were looking at what would Elementary model look like what would the secondary instructional model look like with very using these these Frameworks using these schedules what might we what considerations did we need to put in place so that whatever comes our way as as things change we could be responsive we looked at what our health and safety practices would be what are those protocols what are those screenings what are those checklists what what considerations do we need to have across our early childhood centers what does it look like in those buildings special education Human Resources was taking a look at our our employees returning to work um benefits frequently asked questions uh decision trees we had obviously facilities grounds Transportation rent uh you know our rentals Athletics also had task teams working through Logistics here what's interesting about this is that all of these are are dealing with unique different scenarios and challenges and yet there's lots of overlap what you'll see here is that these were the individuals and this was comprised of are some of our administrators they were surveyed to ask us what would your choice be and where we if do you want to help this what would your choice be and then we also had individuals who reached out to us saying I want to be involved here's how I could be you how could I be utilized so we had multiple roles in there you'll see that we had leaders who who volunteered to be co-chair people to lead this work because multiple meetings were happening at multiple times they were working closely with their cabinet member because they would bring information that said need a decision here here's a noisy need help us figure it out let's let's coordinate together co-chairs worked with other co-chairs so that there where there was consistency there wouldn't be overlap we were sharing documents so that one one checklist didn't contradict another so a lot of people were involved multiple eyes included president either members of the Border my mic's working now sorry but I also want to say as Dr Foley has done an incredible job of bringing together all of our stakeholders including administrators teachers parents and classified staff so This truly was uh Committees of all stakeholders within within our district so she's done an absolutely incredible job to make sure that we wanted to and be very inclusive in this aspect so I will share with you that these this is just and again we would like to thank everybody who are on these lists these were the different committees and the individuals who were part of doing a lot of the work and then bringing it back to the team and looking through that we even had groups of people who didn't who shared their perspectives their questions their concerns looking at drafts I will tell you that we've been moving as fast as we possibly can to get information to people and I feel like we're burning the midnight oil sending things to people on Thursday night saying thank you please get us information back by Monday so that we can do draft frequently asked questions number 30 with combining you know information so trying to be as responsive as possible could not have done it with that without the leadership of our leaders in this district and their collaboration with each other and our teachers who reached out to be part of this and give their feedback being honest I I feel like we have done our very best to be think through things together one of the things we want to share is we do not have that talking about the crystal ball we don't have one um there are some un our favorite category is the unknown unknowns that we don't know that we should be preparing for um but what we have done was using the guidance using our expertise work through the scenarios the best that we can with our information to kind of help share where we are at tonight in preparation for what may be coming um one of the things we also said is that our filters what are our filters that we're running this through obviously health and safety is important our quality education is essential whether you're in the classroom or remote and we learned a lot in remote learning and actually we're doing training with teachers before they left on how to utilize a common platform K-12 and we've had ambassadors working all summer and teachers aware of of preparing and moving forward obviously respecting diverse opinions and hearing concerns to address it to the most to the fullest potential possible and ongoing communication the thing that all of our community that all of our committees grappled with though is you have guidance you have your guidance and then you have um what's reasonable feasible and attainable so we called it the FBA you know um how do we take this guidance and make it reasonable and feasible so we're going to start talking about the fact that um there are things that are not always possible but what we're going to talk at night about we're going to be honest about what we can do and what we can't do and what we're going to do to address those things so that parents can make informed decisions and we're going to start also with with looking at what did our community say and feel when they gave us input and and I have our wonderful Mr lotzenheiser and Mrs Richards who are going to share with you the results that we learned from our community well in this survey that was sent out the first of June so good evening president kaler and board community and of course cabinet thank you for taking time tonight to understand our process and I was going to introduce him but she already did so he's going to take it away bored I am a rookie first of all I'd like to say thank you for allowing me the opportunity to join the team here in Higley and I look forward to serving the community of Higley together welcome to by the way thank you for being here thank you so as you can see uh from the slides on June 3rd we started and submitted two different surveys a parent surveying an employee survey to get the pulse of the community and of our employees 4 318 responses by families which came out to approximately 7 500 students were represented by the surveys which gave us a return response rate somewhere around 60 percent so I think that is actually fantastic in terms of a response rate and gave some validity to the survey and the results that we're seeing from the employee side we have 899 responses which is about 62 percent of our employees that responded to the survey so this is the brief right off the bat we wanted to know are you planning to come to work or attend school in the 20 2021 school year and you can see overwhelmingly uh very easy to see in the pie graph we had 88 of our parents said yes and 97 of our employees said yes in in reaction to the quarter four of last year we took a look and asked do you prefer the district provide your students remote learning only and overwhelmingly our community said no 20 percent said yes we would look at that only eighty percent saying no those were all our moms that were like take them back please a few of us dads are like that too and dads yes okay okay whoever was home with the kids is the one who was answering this um when we look just to break down a little bit further amongst our employees 67 percent of the responses came from certified employees while 33 percent uh are from our classified employees so when you take a look the the purpose of this slide is to show you the breakdown by grade level of the responses and when I first looked at it when I got I said wow this is great absolutely we had we had representation from all grade levels and very positive support across uh the the splits on our grades so that's once again adding validity to our survey the next one shows what schools will your child be attending or where were you where will your workplace be and you can see we had great representation from all schools and at the same time with our workplaces I would like to give a shout out to Transportation who had the most responses amongst employees I believe it's 90 94 responses so with that I'll turn it over to Mrs Richards okay so we can look at data in multiple ways numbers percentages and colors and so I love looking at the greens and the blues on these Circle graphs and so when you look at those those tell you if somebody's very comfortable or somewhat comfortable so we ask our parents with increased safety protocols how comfortable are you sending your kids back to school 69 of these parents said Barry or somewhat then we ask employees the same type of question how comfortable are you returning to work in person and you'll see 73 of them said very comfortable or somewhat comfortable foreign was it just the question or did you say these were the safety features that are going to take place because if you just said well you Greg would you like to come back to school versus if somebody said well we'll have this this and this I would answer a lot differently so is there any other questions and you're going to see communication that we sent out in our FAQs about what those extra safety precautions look like and so there's been a lot of communication when we sent this out we hadn't done as much of that but we have worked so hard in these task teams to get all those protocols and resources in place so next we ask Mrs Richards yes I just had a quick question did it say at the top of the survey something about there was an option for a mask the first question was something about Snapchat I took the survey but I know everything has changed since then so I thought I would bring that up there was a for Mr watovich who probably didn't take the survey um it did say something about does anybody remember it indicated that that mass would be that mass would be optional and keep in mind that when this was sent this was uh the first it was July June 3rd um and this was previous to to changes in Arizona cases and pre prior to any ordinances in place but that was something I wanted to help you kind of get there like that was a caveat I guess that's my work tonight so that was a caveat and I thought that might be helpful if you didn't take the survey to know that that was on there and we're going to talk about a bunch of the comments in a minute but that's the number one comment this okay both ways Mrs Richards real quick just I know because this is what I heard a lot of and and since we're going through the survey at the moment we are very aware the circumstances have changed within our state between the time people took these surveys to right now and I can just imagine people watching going yes but I would change my answer right now so I I just want to make that clear that we're just going off of the information we're going through this like you guys and they're going to have an opportunity yes to tell us what they want whether they want to come back in person or if they're uncomfortable so you're exactly right um June 19th everything changed so yeah while we're continuing to go through these survey questions I just want to make it very clear if anyone's watching and they're kind of yelling at their screen going but that's what are you doing I did answer this but I would change my answer to this that we're aware of it but we're just going through the data we're aware of when it was taken and we are keeping that into consideration and there will be future steps that you guys are going to go over I just don't want someone having a coronary watching it going thank you for making that clear all right one of the questions we also asked would was how comfortable would you be with your child in a hybrid model which could look like two days in school and the other time at home online and you're going to see that that looks different than the first slide we looked at 49 of our parents said they'd be comfortable or somewhat comfortable and same thing with our staff and our teachers 67 said percent said they would be comfortable president Kaylor members of the board I would also like to remind you at this time even though this survey question was posed that there is no funding mechanism for this to happen with the state at this time they have made no accommodations uh to change the Arizona revised Statute that requires a certain number of hours or a certain number of hours per year over 180 Day School calendar so even though we did ask this question at this point in time there have been no changes made to statutes to allow this to happen and receive funding for those students that's important thank you for clarifying that um the last thing we asked was how comfortable are you going fully remote or online from home 30 of our parents at this point in time said comfortable or somewhat comfortable and 50 percent of our employees said that so we did have some experience with this the last quarter and like you said a lot of parents were taken back we don't know how to do this we respect you guys we want them back but one of the most important things when you give a survey is to look at your comments and we had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments so we looked for themes things that kept coming up and I mentioned this The Mask came up over and over and at that point in time it was I don't want my student wearing a mask they're not coming back to school if you make them and there were parents that said we want them to wear a mask and like we said this is prior to Gilbert's town council's uh emergency order that we are all following now so there was a theme we want kids back in school we want them learning and they talked a lot about social emotional time which is lunch recess specials after school activities Athletics so that's what we saw um they also talked about their kids had a very hard time being away from structure their teachers their friends and it was tough on them emotionally the other thing we saw unfortunately was the quality of the remote learning could be improved so guess what we took that to heart we put systems in place and they're going to talk more about canvas K-12 shortly as we get into the instructional models our teachers said things like let's get back to work let's put safety measures in place I miss the kids the kids feel happy and safe at school so we have a lot of teachers that I'll just put it this way they were hurting too one of the things that we look forward to sharing with our community at the end of this week is a majority of the questions and themes that were asked we now have answers for to help help you better make a decision when we ask you to determine for us what you want for your student right now our FAQs from our staff and our from our community are addressing this and was the heart of the work of those processes procedures and pieces that we have in place that that we're going to talk a little bit about tonight so that that families will hear more about specifics in that those documents that will be going on at the end of this week so again those feedback survey questions we now have answers to to the greatest extent possible that we look forward to addressing there were some other pieces that came up with oh and those surveys that we want to address and share as well with some information at this moment so one of the things we've talked about quite often is the school calendar we know that the Higgin Unified School District starts approximately a month from now and so there's lots of conversation and lots of talk of should we postpone that so at this time it would be the recommendation of the board to not postpone that and there were several reasons we thought about that and in considerations so possibly moving the starting date would limit the length of our breaks and may not benefit our students should we close again so if that happens we should we would have that less of the time to have with our students uh we're a live a face-to-face instruction also too um with our current decision it allows for two weeks or 16 days every nine weeks that we could utilize as a natural break for isolation or to keep keep students away from each other as recommended by the CDC should we have an outbreak we also know that some of our neighbors are changing their start date too some are supposed to start a week before us and some are supposed to start a week after us careful consideration was given to the Higley Unified School District being at a separate date should a spike hit we know it's not just going to be in Higley Unified School District that it might be across the State of Arizona and we would be in a place to where we could have a separate start time from the rest of our communities to take care of our communities and our students should something happen so that was a lot of conversation in regards to our school calendar and whether we should change the time and date of our school calendar so at this time it's our recommendation to keep that although we know it may be out of our hands and it may be changed for us I was watching a neighboring District as we were coming in I came early to watch their decision um so I was watching what they were doing how they were deciding their survey I was looking at that information as well um I think it's a good decision to keep the way you want Dr Thomason um it sounds like there's some mess over there that they're gonna have to start cleaning up for that so we're going to talk more about options for families so this is kind of like the spoiler part of this then we're going to talk more about what this looks like but basically we are we have prepared options for families and they're going to have essentially two options now you're going to hear about multiple plans tonight we asked you about hybrid we asked you about back to school as normal as possible we're looking at two two options I like to talk with my hands I apologize two options the first option is full-time in-person option now full-time in-person option with the goal to returning as normal as possible with with everyone being able to go back the idea of a hybrid is that that is some a hybrid is some as it is put in place to allow for more social distancing opportunities so um in-person learning schedules would be a potential option there so we're looking for full-time in person the other option would be a full-time remote learning so that if if a family said you know what I'm not comfortable with returning to the building at this time I want to know more about that remote learning a lot of work has been done in that area that we will be talking with with talking about but there are essentially two options returning to the building with whatever schedule option is allowable based on the health and wellness at the time and schedule potentials here and or or remote learning that flexible option is the idea that I could start remotely I may decide at this moment I'm going to wait there's a lot of unknowns from me and my family I want to uh to not return to the building I want to start remotely but if at any point at any time that I decide you know what I want to reconsider that at the end at a quarter break we would want families to be able to to to transition back into the in-person option the other thing is is you could choose to start face to face and for any reason decide that for health related reason or for any other option you felt was best to transition into remote learning that that that's that choice so again we're looking at we're back in the building in person learning with whatever schedule is allowable and we have created every scenario potential so that whatever comes we're ready to go to remote learning to the best to the highest quality possible and the option to go whichever way needed so you're going to learn a little bit more about that tonight but families are going to have the ability to determine and to tell us what they want and tonight you're going to look here learn a little bit more about what those what uh what are the components of those options and what it looks like and the considerations that will help them make that decision and you'll also hear about to save some of the safety and health protocols that are part of of helping me decide if I feel comfortable with returning to school in person what will it look like what can you do and what what will happen in my child's classroom or on the school campus president kale are members of the board we also talked about lots of Hybrid models to where we'd bring 50 of the students in we have had lots of those discussions um and then as far as the aspect that we would even divide kids up by Alpha so brothers and sisters would go together and we wouldn't do like first third fifth and then second so we have had lots of those discussions but at this point in time the Arizona State Legislature does not have a funding mechanism to allow that to happen but should that change please note that those are also some things that we have talked about and taking into consideration um can you clarify something for make us earlier you said that um student counts wouldn't be wouldn't go down any less than two percent right that is correct Mr so in a sense I mean they are kind of allowing for a hybrid bottle I would say right I mean not in terms of of seat hours but in terms of funding I guess which is something all right never mind I don't want to Sidetrack us but there's I actually do what I do what you're saying and that would be a an option that I would like to explore further to be honest with you I hadn't thought of it in that direction Mr clever there is some proposed legislation also that needs to be considered that would more fully more fully allow for that option so the nice thing is is that it in in the absence of those things being finalized we have plans and have identified what that may look like so that we can adjust either way you will even hear tonight how that plans have been made in the event that we go back full time and we're back full time and if the state or or the governor were to close schools again what would our remote learning look like now with what we've learned in the event that that should happen so a lot of preparation for being Nimble being quick being flexible being versatile has been discussed and so we'll talk a little bit about that more Dr Foley yes quick little interjection on this slide yeah um so in these three different areas so so a teacher like a fifth grade team is teaching is it going to be one is going to be for depending on our numbers that one teacher would be the full time online T is that going to be the options because I think about teachers teaching in person and trying to run an online program that's a very good question and that was one of the main concerns family or our teacher group had and you'll hear a little bit more about it but but just to answer that question it'll be really important for the community to tell us their preference what do you want for your students so we can begin to utilize our staffing and our numbers to figure out how we're going to do that and what curriculum we have to do that one of the things you're also going to hear is that the the role of canvas is going to be integrated in across the board because I may be in the face-to-face model and one of the things we're going to really stress is that if you do not feel good you do not go to school today do you remember the poem from from Shel Silverstein the I cannot go to school today said little Peg again McKay who has the measles months ago the reaction you go like I couldn't do the whole poem I'll spare you but um but essentially the role of if your that filtering if I don't feel good I don't go to school but but I don't want you to fall behind so your ability to stay connected with what's happening in the classroom canvas is going to be a tool that we use and that will whether you are in the face-to-face or full remote online learning now as a teacher I'll be using that tool more but I won't be trying to teach my class face to face and teach online at the same time so again having the numbers so that we can staff accordingly and appropriately is going to be very very important so um that piece helps answer that and we'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like but again those scenarios are the parts and pieces that our core teams have been working through so talk about attendance letters one of the things that won't happen this year because this was a this came up in our parent survey now wait a minute y'all when we're gone too often you send letters that scare me and so one of the things that will be suspended this year is that letters for for we are not going to Auto generate letters to go home because that is going to be sending contradictory message what we need for you to do is to communicate with us so that we because we need to know if you are not well we need to know if you are not going to be out and and if it's for an extended period of time we will make sure that you can keep up and if it's going to be for an extended extended period of time we may work with you to transition you fully to to um remote only and so one of the things you'll find is that yes the auto dialer will still work we will still double check to make sure you've reported attendance because we need to do that but we we're going to be rolling out at the beginning of year a really nice app that will allow parents to quickly and easily if we know we're going to need to be home for a couple weeks I can report attendance all at once and we can track that so again things like traditional things like perfect attendance and those kind of things are contradictory to our new normal and so those are some of the transitions that we're going to be making in our processes so that our our Auto things don't continue to happen that way because that's that's not what not what's important um you're going to hear as we transition into this um we caution again everything we say today Canon will possibly shift and change and that's one of the reasons why our teams have been working to figure out what does this look like what how might this be so if it changes overnight we're not starting from scratch all over again but it's a lot of it's a lot of thought processes here so um you will be hearing from different groups we're going to start with or you're talking about the safety protocols we're going to talk about health and then we're going to go into the instructional model kind of pieces so you'll hear a little overview of all these know that there are volumes of documents and resources and materials that these groups have created that we've been reviewing um but that we're trying to streamline just kind of general gist here so that we can begin to give information to families about what we're preparing for school so um we are do not worry do not fear we are working really hard for for our community and for our students so that we provide the best quality education possible and options to the greatest extents possible so with that I'm delighted to turn this over for this portion to talk a little bit about the facility pieces with our new um director who who was introduced to beginning this is Felicia Malloy who we are delighted to have and Ben beholds good evening board president kaler and board members thank you for having me here tonight and look forward to working with all of you Manny and I were part of the task force for facility and custodial and what we have here is that we are offering increased cleaning with an emphasis on disinfect disinfecting and sanitation that would include additional custodial staff at each site that will be discussed a little bit later we've also discussed installing the Plexiglas barriers being installed at our campuses they're in process right now face Shields are being made available for our paraprofessionals our health aides and our bus aides enhanced procedures and processes would include that within the communal areas there would be a personal responsibility to have cleaning available just as we're demonstrating tonight with the hand sanitizer here playground equipment will be cleaned at more frequent intervals than they have in the past restrooms would be cleaned at least Midway through the day in addition to the usual cleaning training and professional development for all staff will be arranged currently we do have training for July 2nd for our summer school as you're aware summer school is tentatively set for July 6 for in person for the remainder of the staff custodial training will happen on July 8th and 9th ppes thermometers additional cleaning supplies are all stockpiled in the warehouse and additional items are currently being ordered we do have the installation of hand sanitizers going in stations at all School sites including the district office and we're currently ordering for all classrooms we also are investigating enhanced filters and other equipment that the teachers too will have face Shields not the teachers the teachers right now you know we're under the order with the masks so they would have those correct thank you yeah the face mask is for those that would have that intimate con contact with students just a quick interjection I apologize Felicia um there could be a possibility of face shields for teachers who need it as an accommodation because they do fall in that at-risk category or underlying conditions so you know as the facilities and maintenance team has worked with the rest of us we have decided and talked about ordering a large number of them just in case we have to make more available there's some of the teachers that have asked me this very question so I think some are interested in a face shield as well so thank you for into consideration I think one of the things that we are going to make obviously wouldn't be uh wouldn't be if you if you wanted it will be provided it wouldn't be automatically provided unless you wanted it but what you would provide whatever you felt you wanted that we could provide Dr Thomason I heard that during our work study you had disclosed how much hand sanitizer we bought I think this would be a great time for you to maybe share with our listening audience that may have not turned into our work study president Kayla members of the board we're reaching now close to a hundred thousand dollars in in PPE hand sanitizer and Equipment because it's it's not cheap and actually right now we looked at buying it in 55 gallon drums because we thought we could get a better price and so that we have a lot of hand sanitizer and PPE face Shields gloves cleaning equipment Clorox the warehouse is absolutely pallet after palette after palette of the sanitizers and cleaning equipment and supplies thank you okay the next slide talks about the specialized disinfecting equipment we have currently purchased a prototex handheld cordless electric static sprayer we have four of those available within the district we have also purchased the backpack cordless electrostatic sprayers we have two of those in the district and along with those sprayers we we have purchased the per tabs disinfecting sanitizing tabs that are used within the within that equipment we also are ordering several handhelds at this time so why are we not ordering enough for each school if you just mentioned two and we have how many schools 14 Schools somebody clue me in here a little bit here president Candler Mr rotovich we have a covet cleaning clear well Dr Fowler 11ly refers to as the Ghostbuster Squad and the booster Ghostbuster Squad comes through and they're able to sanitize and clean areas where we may have had a positive case or a potential in infected area and so they do come through so the the coveted cleaning cooler does have that equipment that's assigned to them but we will have other equipment that's available too to the sites quite honestly Mr otovich a lot of things are on back order right now and so as Things become more available we will get more equipment how quickly can they get through a school do we know Dr Fowler how quickly the Ghostbusters can get through with school and we've we've had a couple practice events previously and so we um when we practiced that the last time we were able to sanitize the campus within about an hour so if we had to there could be multiple campuses that they could come through pretty quickly yes yes thank you quick question so this crew that we're talking about you're going to be pulling this crew from other job these are these are district Personnel that that have assigned responsibilities but are are free to to be pulled if needed so it would be not from sites but District personnel great question thank you foreign Crosby coming in to talk a little bit more about what it will Transportation look like because that obviously is is a consideration and something that we want to share so I think Mr Crosby you're going to tell us we just bought 200 buses and 200 more bus drivers no you will not Park them all in right so president killer members of the board I am here to speak on the transportation committee and what our recommendations are but before I start with that if I can help answer maybe a question from the previous group because I did send a few subcommittees um Mr wichovic about the static sprayers that the district has those are a little bit more expensive and the the product that's used in them has a one minute kill time for covid there is a much more cost effective thing that I think our district is looking at with a five minute kill time and it's applied using a garden sprayer which is a lot more cost effective and I I don't want to speak for the others but I think it is what we'll probably be used more in the schools unless there's an outbreak yep um so with that I will discuss uh Transportation obviously um the six foot rule on a school bus is one that's very difficult to accommodate so our our committee did our best to uh ensure that the buses are safe not only for the students but as well as our employees we're going to start with signage on the buses that will remind students of healthy habits as well as what the symptoms are for the virus we will have hand sanitizer available on all the buses however it does need to be kept under the driver's control not readily available to the students but it will be on the bus and available if needed and the reason for that could you share why we're letting one having a driver hold it well the driver may not necessarily be holding it it'll be in under his control could you share maybe why yeah it is a flammable product and it is a I know exactly but I've had Parents ask me why aren't we letting it and I said kids will eat it and uh alcohol I think it's a good point to make sure that parents know the kids will eat it if they are by themselves so Mr Crosby just touch your microphone and when the red light goes on it's on I don't think you're on it's a green light now is that President uh the the microphones that are on the tables are a little bit different I will turn mine around so you can see the green light that's on when you're when it's on Just a Little Closer so we're also recommending um due to the air air conditioning systems on our school buses are by default 100 recirculated air throughout the bus that we do lower some of the windows on the bus to allow additional fresh air into the vehicle all of the buses will have the seats and handrails disinfected after each bus run and again that's using the product with a five minute kill rate using a garden type sprayer that would be applied to all the high touch areas in the seats masks are going to be required for the students drivers and aides or anyone else that is in the vehicle our special ed bus drivers and AIDS will be provided a face shield to use in addition to their mask when they're in close proximity to a student an example of that would be when they're securing a wheelchair or strapping them into a seat belt we will continue to have assigned seats on our buses and do everything we can to seat families together and students will still continue to scan their bus pass or school ID on and off of us lastly something that does benefit us at least this time of the year in Arizona is the virus does die at 133 degrees after 15 minutes so if we do Park our buses with the windows up they do get hotter than that and that's just a secondary benefit to doing that I'd be happy to answer any questions or provide any additional information Mr Crosby there was a small concern that with the windows up and the door shut and 133 degree bus what are our precautions we're taking to make sure we don't forget about a student on the bus a great question bus drivers are actually required to walk the bus after every run anyway and our buses in our Fleet are equipped with an electronic device to where if the driver turns off the ignition and exits the bus before they go to the back of the bus and push a button the bus horn starts honking and the lights flash so it alerts others in the yard so there is um very little risk that that could happen thank you for that Mr Crosby I just uh this is not a question I I know that your team has been over the past few months doing different work than what they were hired and signed on to do and uh they have passed out tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of meals and other things so I just I should have probably emailed you to say thanks for to your staff and to acknowledge um all those people that you know the best kind of people you know that pitch in and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done and they've shown up and uh accredited to your department president kaler members of the board if I may and Josh wouldn't want me to mention this but I think it's important yesterday Josh was part of a national call and was the school bus expert with over you know close to 2 000 people chiming in to hear about and learn about the things that that we're doing in Higley to keep students safe and and Josh is not only a leader in the state of Arizona but a leader as far as school transportation actually so we're we're very fortunate to have him and appreciate that that he does what he does so I just wanted to share that with the board as well that he was on a national call yesterday as an expert on school transportation the only one expert on school transportation thank you Mr Crosby for that that's awesome um a quick question so even on the bus if if our mask is lifted for Gilbert and Maricopa we are still going to have a mandatory mask rule on our buses is that what this is saying president Keeler members of the board it's going to be extremely highly recommended and requested because we cannot physical distance on the bus okay so I mean that's what's something we're going to is that the wording that we're yes okay yes so parents understand if they were just reading this that yeah absolutely highly I like your wording yes okay thank you so um it's requested you know that that all students at anybody when you cannot physically distance of six feet or more it would be highly encouraged and um requested that you wear a mask President Taylor um I just want to thank Mr Crosby I I don't think a lot of people know these cleaners you have had for what two years now so taking the health and safety of all of our students who ride our bus that has been a Forefront for you for several years we have taken certain precautions because our buses they're you're in close proximity so I want to thank you for that that you were already ahead of the game because that is important um for you and our drivers and our students so I just want to thank you for already working on that and it kind of makes this transition a little easier thank you I appreciate that yeah for a couple years we have been cleaning our buses not to this degree but we have been sanitizing them particularly during cold and flu season um mainly because there is a driver shortage and we want to keep our drivers healthy so then get the students to and from school so yeah we um we're pretty familiar with the disinfectant and the process that we need to do that's awesome I just want to say thank you because I didn't know that we were doing that as a board member even so I just want to say thank you because that is really really cool to know that we were already ahead of the game here um that helps parents to know like hey we are doing our part too so thank you you mentioned to keep our bus drivers healthy in this presentation this this evening is there going to be a section what human resources we'll be addressing so thanks okay we have our human resources will be coming shortly okay thank you yes thank you Mr Crosby along the theme of facilities will allowed Dr Fowler to talk about um this as well yeah we have we had a big area again I want to just reiterate thanks to all those members that were part of the six different task teams related to facilities and um you know there's just a lot of moving parts and uh in many ways of the two groups I'm talking about next are are are out there and and uh trying things out for us and uh and and being very successful so we have reopened limited rental opportunities um our renters are um having to follow very specific procedures and guidelines based on the CDC um which include new health screenings not just for the employees but also for the renters um our Community Education rental team is is checking on those and and and those renters um know that they have to follow those guidelines or their opportunity to rent would be removed we've also increased the sanity sanitation at those rentals before um after and in some cases during depending on the length of that and so there's a lot of work that's been done with our community rentals and uh the H the Higley Center for Performing Arts is is preparing as well and we'll have some more details about that facility as as that develops president Kayla members of the board we have had some unfortunate rentals where some of the uh the individuals running have not followed the rules and compliances that we have set in place during covid-19 and so you may hear from some of individuals that that have been denied rental opportunities because they could not follow some of the physical distancing and some of the practices that we have um it's been unfortunate but it's something that we wanted to do to keep our our staff and Community safe and I am 100 in supportive of that and finally from our group Athletics and activities we We are following the the AIA guidelines and the CDC guidelines checking and monitoring procedures are in place for the health of students sterilization of equipment and Facilities before and after and a process where we're not sharing personal equipment we're following the tiered stages that you've seen and currently the Athletics is at stage three which is allowing group training with physical distancing of no more than 50 students provided they can socially distance inside I believe that number is closer to 25 just because of the ability to do that and we're following closely with the AI guidelines and and we'll continue to monitor that and follow what the bigger group follows as well we're going to transition to start talking about health services so we have our district nurse Jillian Fulton here this evening to talk about the work she led with this group which is an essential group and crossed over all of us I mean there were crosses across all of these task forces talking and this is one that we relied in addition to facilities was the health and safety what does this look like and how are we going to implement that in our schools so she's here tonight to share a little bit of information and again more of this is going to be sent to families by the end of the week so that they can actually review this and see this for themselves president Kayla members of the board too I can't give enough kudos to to Julian our district nurse she does have some certifications and some some background and certificates that allow her to do some things that nobody else in the district can do and that is working with the Arizona Department of Health Services and Maricopa County apartment Health Services access to different things and able to make some of the phone calls and work with some of the the the HIPAA information that nobody else in in the district can do so we're very thankful to have her on our team don't have a degree in microphones okay good evening president members of the board our community everybody here tonight again I'm Jillian Fulton the district nurse for Higley Unified School District tonight I want to present some of the work to you that this health and safety task force has worked on as well as a wonderful Advisory board that we have that's put a lot of input into this work as well um the first slide here we're talking about a lot of education for families and that will include daily considerations to take we have a need to know section that will follow this right now we're looking at the husd daily family health screening expectations this is something that two this is twofold this will be sent home to families as an expectation that will be done at home this will also be posted in and around school for staff to reiterate to students and to talk about we have has your child experienced any of the following fever or new onset or worsening cough or shortness of breath or new loss of taste or smell or diarrhea or vomiting close contact with anyone who has exhibited any of the above symptoms close contact with anyone who has tested positive for covid-19 close contact is defined as having close within six feet in prolonged generally greater than 15 minutes contact with the covid-19 patient if the answer is yes to any of the above please keep your child at home and contact your school's Health office and again these will be available online as well for families in the community to access if you go you have a folder a gray folder and inside there is a letter and it starts with dear husd parents and Guardians and on the very top of that letter you'll see these daily considerations that I just went through and below that we have the need to know section those are things that we've recommended for families staying informed about covid-19 through resources such as CDC the Arizona Department of Health Services recognizing symptoms being aware what those are and knowing because sometimes we think we know what a cough is but the differences between do we have allergies or is that a new cough is that a new cuff from my child sounds different we're seeking medical advice by calling their health care facility making sure that they're following up and keeping that communication open practicing and reinforcing good hygiene at home washing our hands for longer than 20 seconds coughing into our elbow avoiding close contact I know we want to give all of our friends a hug but right now let's you know just talk to them from from that distance if your child is sick or needs to leave school suggestions for families is to keep your child home if they are sick please keep them home and we have contact your child School administration or the district nurse with any concern specifically related to covid-19 in your child's health consider planning for alternate Child Care Arrangements have a backup plan in place and please make sure all your contact information is always up to date so that we can reach you you know when we when we need to and that one is very important going back to the theme of individual responsibility there's going to be a culture shift on campus it's also student awareness of how important you are in being aware of how you're feeling and keeping yourself and others safe so awareness and ownership and and responsibility of health is an important piece that will not only be a home piece but an individual process and responsibility learning piece as well for all of our students foreign that you will have is the husd covid-19 exclusion guidelines this is a form that I developed with information from every Health government entity I can get my hands on right now and this is where we're at this form will be given to families when they are sent home if their student is sent home in the health office with any symptoms and this will guide them to facilitate coming back to school if a family is given this form I will know I will have contact with them my health aide at that school that triangle we will know we'll be communicating where they're at what they've done if they've seen their doctor yet if they were tested how many days ago and this will be a ongoing system to make sure that they can come back when when they're healthy and able to do so ask a quick question on that slide um with the negative or the covid-19 diagnosis with the negative lab test results that we say they have to have at least two negatives within or at least 24 hours apart or 10 days um the amount of time it's taking right now to get test results that 10 days is going to come before they could get two negative test results and so is that is that something that we're going to continue to look at um I mean right now they're taking literally between seven to ten days to get one back and if they're having to do two um they're going to it's going to be longer than the 10 days yes Mysteries you're right and and I think as I look at all the guidelines every day to match up that we're still on the same line and and it's grown from three to five days we've gone from five to seven and now we're at seven to ten so I think that will grow and we're going to have to adjust with that and and that's going to be on that it was going to be adjusted and that's what we're going to do because I certainly wouldn't keep it at 10 right and then they're not getting there then they think we don't have the updated information so I'll keep changing as we go it's very fluid but every single day I check all of those guidelines to see where we're at and make sure we're still on those numbers perfect I just yeah I hear you it all it changes every day and at one point you used to be able to get your results within 24 hours and now it it's just increased so and I don't know where it's going to go from there but thank you to the point of ongoing monitoring monitoring of data the number of cases you know again having a point person that's monitoring all that so that we can adjust accordingly and respond appropriately as an essential component of the health and safety pieces that that have been part of this protocol that we're working through and one quick question on the health and safety part as well can we look to have a specific identifiable place on our website that parents can go like they don't have to go look for it they can click and say this is my covid-19 health and safety where we can get this information right away and not have to navigate through our entire website trying to find it president will definitely put something on our front page to go to for covid-19 information so right at the beginning they'll know where to go for information on on health and safety precautions and where they can find we're also want to make sure that we communicate very heavily with our parents and Community about the symptoms and signs to not send students home or students to school if they have some some of the um causes of cover 19.

2021 someone who gave second for her supports the proposition everyone in favor of the proposition are going to make the call chit Says that Lauren says that s says that says that s Richard is unanimous the emotion passes the proposition AF the Board of Education accepts the employee salaries as recommended as it is recommended someone who is second emy emy any questions Yes no everyone in favor that please has called ropo a the motion passes the proposition G the Board of Education approves and establishes the 2020-2021 budget an amount of 135,686 the 9% in position is accepted question Who has the second supports it Katy supports it wants to thank for all the work that has been done to kateo it is a good presentation and wants to thank that with lasas I want to thank also this is this is included Ah they want to see if the other 10 million are included they want to see regarding that and and and have other questions they are also asking questions to see how these are given Ah the specialists for the special students of Kindergarten through fifth grade want to know who provides support. The children are being explained how it will be done in September.

These are the things that happen at Bamb regarding the funding, the money that is available. Seeing with all the combinations that are happening now, with all the complications that are being made now, it's a lot of work, it's hard work for the administration, but thank you, thank you to everyone, and the city has something to give. It would be very good. Well, thank you for the comments. I want to know what the robot is going to do to see if they passed. Yes. [Music] Yes, yes. [Music] It's a meeting. Thank you all. The report says super, super, the level of the virtual listening session on Monday. We left there was quite a lot of participation. They are going to do another forum this coming Friday. There are going to be more, like a million, to see how that forum is going to be carried out.

Conte already has been who he's been just terrific about working out the details up in Hartford along with the rest of the the contingent to up there if they're going to make some changes so Carrie would you want to just briefly talk about it sure so we did have an opportunity to go back up to the to the summit keep wanting to call the matrix but it's it's been renamed so if I say matrix just you know I mean the summit so and you know just to look at the space we you know like many of you we did get a chance to see some of the some of the plans behind there it seems to be very exciting I think you know the first hurdle is to make sure that the project itself can go through when I went up to Hartford it I think perhaps my my I visit with them may have been a little premature and talking about the different pathway and all the things we're excited about the programming piece which I think you know we really have to spend more time thinking through and vetting and working with the high school and district administration to make sure that we are actually fulfilling the you know the right pathways in not only just at that location but at Danbury high school as well because it's not just a singular program that would be at the summit it would be part of a complementary program under Granberry high school that would include multiple pathways and then one of the one or two of those pathways pathways would exist in the Academy in that location so so the visit in Hartford was really more along the lines of the logistics of the project itself the nuts and bolts and whether or not the ideas of how they are going to position that building for reimbursement would would be possible you know the ways that you know to be explored and I think that there's legislation that actually has to be changed in order for that to happen so there are some definite hurdles there to to overcome before you know we start developing out you know the programming that goes in there so basically we need to own that building for them you know I think would be a cleaner transaction and so they're looking at details on how to to do that this is an unusual approach usually they build from the ground up they dig and build the entire project and so this is a building and would be buying an existing structure and then refurbishing it and then getting approval for reimbursement and that just hasn't been done they face talk about you know fifteen or sixteen checkboxes on the sheet and and that doesn't exist on that sheet and so how did how to get around that and how to navigate that and work with some area folks to get that done so there's a few hurdles to to happen but certainly the project is exciting I'm hoping and hopeful that it would go forward and once that happens again we'll be working more collaboratively to make sure that you know what we what we do put there in terms of programming fits some of the visions that we've been speaking about you could be assured that it's probably long of the stem lines you know we've done our homework and research with the Northwest Regional workforce board the types of programs that are in demand right now in this area in this catchment are architecture construction finance health science information technology and high-tech manufacturing so you know we'd be looking along pathways along the lines of those pathways but and also understanding all of the tenants who are over in in the building per se we've heard some exciting tenants that are there now there are some exciting tenants that are coming in and so how do you utilize the resources in our backyard and that would be just down the hall to help build the program help to support a program and maybe even to help fund a program and so there's there would be a lot of work involved in getting sort of those potential ideas and so we're starting to explore those now but the first phase is getting that project approved and moving it forward before we can get to the they're really fun stuff so so so for the board you know we've been chatting about what what it would be and we've kind of come along giving parents choices that's been a focus of ours as a as a district where we could where we can and I e you have a is which is an inter it's a inner district which means outside students as well it for inside programming of course we have the the program at the high school the early college the freshman school all participate in that you've got culinary you've got nurses by choice you know the board when when Westside open we made it made it to academies just respecting that if there's an interest on a family to enter into it so the idea has been do we do we propagate that do we permit more choice for parents the view has been in my view yes we'd like to do that while we not only solve a space problem but you know not solved but but enhanced the Challenge that the state has put before all of us are you preparing youngsters for the workforce are they the proper areas will they be certified and are they not just dead-end jobs and this is what we're talking about is why we went to Nashville to see how they did it and so I guess to the board I just want you to know that when you when this ketamine is coming together it has to be with your collaboration of what we want to do that because you could simply say let's just have another six new drug Andry district and put everybody up there and make it really simple well it won't be that simple but you know we could do that but and I just I was saying the Jo and an email that I think there needs to be some board conversations I'm certainly looking at this as another supporting magnet school for parent choice I'm looking at this as a alternative to a normal bath way up at the high school so those are you know some things that I think you should have at least some did some thinking from our board that's different I think it needs to come out and not feel as though you haven't participated I think that's the last thing needs to happen we said to the town we need space they're going to give us face what we put in that space would be what we do so I just I'm just respectfully putting it out there because one things you would expect this to start to do is to start looking at we have researching careers and start putting things together that will be operationalizing to Ed specs that you would have to approve otherwise it doesn't get done so I don't know whose if Jo the Britain has any comments but this would be a good time hand up for a while oh I didn't see that got a lot of people on here so I just wanted to jump in real quick and I don't know you know who the best person is to answer this question dr.

sell whatever you need us I'm definitely available it's a very exciting opportunity or even just some updates you want to shoot us by email that's okay too yeah we'll get that out go ahead Joe I'm sorry I just well you know I'm a huge fan of the Academy model since we got the presentation from Terra you know like over half a year ago so I'm all in on this project I think we have a really unique opportunity to kind of build it from the ground up not literally but so it's gonna be easier I think for us to start something new like this and it would be to change something that's pre-existing so when we can because I know we don't really have enough information to convene the site's committee right now but I want a workshop it I really think we have opportunity to do something special so whenever we can get together and dr.