>> Okay. Thanks. >> Anyone else? >> Okay. So, I have a question. >> Yes. So as as fiduciaries and as as board members and we know our role ethical role if there's chatter going on on Facebook that something came out and we get tagged in something are we allowed to comment Dr. road because uh be strongly advised not to um engage in in anything. Remember, you're you're a board member at a board meeting, >> correct? >> Outside of that, you are a citizen who can comment as a citizen with, you know, we recommend that disclaimer, but um you're you're not to speak for the board. You're not to answer uh back and forth. And and people people know how to contact us. So, if they want answers, they they can contact us. Social media is not where you're going to get your answers most of the time.
We want to recognize that ASDB is facing a severe budgetary crisis and that includes deteriorating buildings, service providers and declining birth rates. Deaf, heart of hearing and low vision students are also declining in tandem with those b birth rates. However, we are concerned that the promotion of moving students and cluster sites prioritizes functions that need to be revised. Educational placement is a determination of an IEP team and staff and budgetary concerns do not dictate placement. ASDB deserves an environment of equal access to all individuals. It's not a one-sizefits-all solution. Give ASDB its constitutional and foundational history. I ask you to pause the vote on the relocation in order to collaborate with community members and families before moving forward. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] Up now is Melissa Clammen and on deck will be Elizabeth Browse. Hello, my name is Melissa. I am a former student of PDSD.
So typically I bring all of the high school courses in December for consideration of the next year. However, one of the things that we want to make sure that we are doing is offering our students opportunities as they become available to us. And so uh we have had some recent information and and data come to us and so we're asking your consideration of the following courses. So, we would like to go ahead and uh officially offer advanced placement AP pre-calculus. Um, and we would like and we're anticipating that this would be offered at both Morirana and Mountain View High School next year. So, we already have an incredible dual enrollment program for pre-calculus that's offered through Puma Community College. What we are seeing is an actual increase of the number of students who are eligible to take that course and an increased desire of the number of students to take the course.
Um we've already been very successful. Very recently there's been a lot of contract buyouts and we're getting some of those agency staff to convert over because our contract is just that much better than it was before and we hope to continue on that progress. We won't be perfect next year, but we're gradually start to make that conversion. Um but we're proactively planning for that now so that those aren't those health benefits aren't sitting in our account at the end of the year. Okay. other these are a little more incremental. Adult ed uh has an increased ask of 230,000. Uh very important. We've uh needed to increase our cost share. Um there's other surrounding towns that contribute to the adult ed programming and Danbury has the most amount of students in the program and our cost share was not quite where it needed to be from a percentage standpoint.
Apple Valley Unified School District serves our community with dignity by meeting the unique academic, behavioral, and social, emotional needs of all students so that they may thrive with an sorry [sighs] in an everchanging world. With that mission in mind, we are here today to discuss the proposed reduction of 241 classified positions. These positions are not optional. Every single one of them is essential to keeping our schools running on a daily basis. 167 of these positions are paraprofessionals. I am a special needs par profofessional and I fall directly into this category. My job is to support students behavioral, social, and emotional needs, especially those I consider the coolest kids on campus. The most vulnerable students, the ones who need us the most. If you've ever had the opportunity to meet some of them or if you have spent time in our classrooms such as Renee and Marie, you have you would agree with us.
>> So you the district we approve the contract for Kelly. Okay. I'm not going to put you in a in a bad way. That is a that is a vendor that we hire. >> Yes. >> The only time the board votes on is if we want to increase the contract. Correct. >> We vote on that. >> We don't we don't we don't vote on to decrease. >> No. The board voted on a contract with this company to allow the administration to utilize this company to fill vacancies. >> So that's how the how the administration utilizes those vacancies is day-to-day. >> Correct. >> Um >> having said that, >> this could have been communicated better with the board. >> And I just want to be public with um with my conflict so people don't think I'm like a stock. My daughter is a substit my daughter is at Monontlair State University studying to be a teacher and she's a substitute teacher who works for Kelly Education.
My children attend this campus. They are also former ASDB Tucson campus students. I'd like to share two items. I am in favor of ASDB uniting as one. I personally have experienced along with my children how the education system has failed us. So staying together is the best option. I am in favor of giving us the option to [clears throat] give us time to stay together. I am also here to support our athletic director, Jeff. He is currently on the riff list. He is a former coach of mine and he currently coaches my children. He has shown commitment in leadership, is a strong advocate and role model, and has a passion for our students in the athletic program. If you decide to riff his position, these children will be lost. So, please consider keeping his position and the athletic department. Athletics truly helped me. I grew up in a bad home and because of athletics and Jeff's support, it helped me thrive.
With that being said, the the instructors for the course must be qualified by the higher learning commission in order to be eligible to teach a Puma Community College course. The same certification requirements are not required for students who do AP or I mean for teachers who teach the AP courses. And so what we want to ensure is that every single high school student that wants to take a a high school mathematics course where they could be eligible for college credit is able to do so and not limited by our ability to provide a certified teacher. So ideally we would all want our students to be able to take all of the courses but we want to make sure that we have a backup plan in case um we need sections of AP pre-calculus. The other course that I'm bringing for you is a series of four courses, advanced placement seminar with ELA credit and that would be for uh I'm sorry, three courses for um English 10, ELA 10, 11, and 12 to be run concurrently.
So we've increased that. Um it'll increase again next year. So, we're doing it in kind of two half measures. And then the remaining number delta between 321 and 230 are just incrementals across all systems that add up $1,000, $500 here and there. So, all of those asks are offset by our benefit reduction of 6 million and uh $6.7 million. I'm gonna have I'm gonna turn it over to Mike in a moment. Um there was a lot of thought that went into into this in terms of um how we're going to u you know hedge on some of the benefits that we that we've um typically benefited for in the past. So I'll turn it over to Mike. >> Thanks Cara. Um when when we speak about uh benefits I think most of us think about uh health care, dental and vision. And that certainly is a a large part of this.
They are pretty incredible. From kindergarten through adulthood, these students are pretty amazing and they deserve consistent and compassionate support. There are many students who struggle with academically who struggle academically and need additional help that teachers despite their dedication cannot always provide. Teachers are overworked. Classrooms are full. And it is impossible for one person to meet everyone to meet every need alone. Pared educators, especially special needs pair educators, are there to support both teachers and students, ensuring that no child falls through the cracks. Cutting these positions will not only make teachers jobs significantly harder. It will directly impact students, it will lower academic outcomes, increase behavioral challenges, and cause students who are already struggling to fall further behind. If we truly believe in our mission to serve all students with dignity, then we must protect the very positions that make that mission possible. Thank you for your time.
Um, so that's why I I'm conflicted and I don't make any recommendations or discuss uh Kelly education um except for in general terms. Not I wish I was a stockholder. Um so uh yeah, Mrs. Ambassador, so that it was day-to-day operations, but be because of the impact that the decision was going to have, it could have been communicated better to to the board for sure. Uh we thought the communication that went out to staff um it was I I know Mr. Shiada and and Miss Kusalevich spent a lot of time working on it. We thought that it was well thought out. We thought it was carefully worded and then um Kelly Education sent out >> I can comment on that if you like. Um so we sent out our notification to the staff and then Kelly sent their notification to the substitutes working for them.
So, I implore you to please reconsider. Thank you. [cheering] >> I love you, Jeff. >> [applause] >> Up now is Elizabeth Browse and on deck will be Kate Scalley. Hello, my name is Elizabeth Browse. I am a preschool teacher at PDSC and today representing the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind Education Association, the union here at ASDB. Um, my comments echo what I'm hearing that of unity. The word Ubuntu is important to me. I am because we are. That's a philosophy that I live by and I join the the sentiment of unity today. The the ASCB community deserves better than the chaos and the uncertainty of the last several weeks. As educators who care deeply about our students and believe in their potential, we're deeply disappointed by the community censorship and lack of transparency that have defined the ASCB leadership's approach to discussions about our Tucson campus and employee riffs.
We recently got a notification from the college board that they do now offer this as a concurrent enrolled course. AP Seminar is a year-long course that engages students in cross-curricular conversations that explore complexities of academic and real world topics, real world topics and issues by analyzing divergent perspectives. In this students are able to engage in multiple learning modalities and analyze by analyzing articles, research studies and foundational literary and philosophical texts, listening to and viewing speeches, broadcasts and personal accounts and experience artistic works and performances. Uh really this course enables students to look at information from multiple perspectives and analyze it uh in an effort to increase their understanding of the world around them. really helping students understand and process lots of different types of information. We were thrilled that the college board was able to articulate this along with uh the essential Arizona well the essential ELA standards which do um align with the Arizona state standards and so we anticipate next year this course this is actually because of the crosscurricular nature of this course we ant this course will be offered at Vista so our Vista students would have the opportunity there in addition we've had interest at both Morirana High and at Mountain View for a course of this nature I do know that Morirana High is moving moving forward with the 10th grade version of this course that they incorporated into their course book.
But in our line items, the the uh term benefit really applies to much more. So one of the one of the first accounts that we have inside benefits is social security. Employees that we have that don't uh pay into TRB are subject to social security tax. Um so we do have a a modest increase there. uh and that's to reflect the increase the anticipated increase um in salary for for those folks as well as the fact that um on a year-to-ate basis our run rate is a little bit over the budget. So we uh had a modest increase of 115 uh,000 there. Um I'm going to skip over the Sigma Health lines just for now and come back to that because that's the the largest uh portion. um t the teamsters that we pay uh their insurance, their health, their dental, and their medical are paid through the teamsters and then we pay the teamsters.
[applause] Thank you, Joey. Right. Next up, Karen Sabers, then Stephen Cobbs, then Stephanie M. I think it might be MSAS. Okay. Good evening, Superintendent Nelson, board members, cabinet, President Scott, Avuda members, CSEA, and other visiting districts. Avooda has conducted a strike authorization vote. 91% of those voting supported a strike and 89% particip with 89% participation. This is a strong and unremarkable voice from our members calling for a fair and equitable settlement that will help attract and retain quality educators in this district. In response, our exec board and our rep council will be moving forward with necessary steps to prepare for a possible strike should it come to that. A resolution into in support of Avuda's potential strike was sent statewide and we have already received solidarity from the following associations. Alhhamra Teachers Association, Mountain View Teachers Association, Needles Teachers Association, San Gabriel Teachers Association, Norwok Teachers Association, Coina Teachers Association, Downey Education Association, Hisperia Teachers Association, Victor Elementary Teachers Association, Victor High Teachers Association, Snow Oline Teachers Association, Lassern Valley Teachers Association, and statewide CTA NEA retired boards.
Um there was one sentence in there that was erroneous. We stated very clearly that we are reducing not eliminating. Unfortunately, they there was an unfortunate use of language with one sentence in their communication that said that we were eliminating the it should have said that we are not eliminating. We were reducing and that's where the miscommunication came um overnight because that message went out. Ours went out at the end of the school day. Theirs went out after hours in the evening. First that was immediately rectified as soon as they realized it. they they notified their their subs um immediately and then sent out a clarification the next morning. >> Thank you. So So just for my fellow board members and the community, next time if you have an issue, please contact administration. Dr. Robbituzzi has been always very welcoming to people calling him or emailing him with answers.
For years, our union has tried to work with the board to design a collaborative and innovative innovative approach to ASDB's future. We have asked the board to partner with us in service to the students that we work with every day. Instead, we have been rebuffed at every turn. The behavior of leadership lately has made clear how the experience and expertise of teachers and staff are not valued. Frozen pay and additional work for those working directly with students, but payraises and promotions at the leadership level. Rifts for specialists in the field, but new leadership positions created. Teachers and staff getting called into meetings with leaders for a warning or a slap on the wrist. emails with reminders about policy instead of being met with grace and empathy during such a confusion time. When does it end? We sit here every other month and watch the board go about business with no critical discussions, no questioning leaders about decisions, just passively approving what comes before them.
Of course, pending board approval. >> Can I get a motion, please? [clears throat] >> I move that the governing board approve the new high school course proposals as presented. >> Second.
So they're they're not part of our Sigma plan. Uh last year uh we budgeted about $2 million for their health insurance. Uh this year we had our benefits coordinator go through um by headcount um and take into the to account the year-over-year increase and apply that. So, budget to budget year-over-year, it's about a $280,000 increase. Um, dental I'll get to when I talk to Sigma and Health. And then, uh, LTD, long-term disability and life, uh, that's actually a small decrease. Um, the contract rates haven't been renegotiated yet, but, um, we expect it to be about $134,000 decrease from last year's budget. The main driver here, what we're looking at is uh Sigma. We utilize Gallagher, who is a a third party consultant to help us uh lies with Sigma and determine what our rates are going to be. They have a a large team of actuaries that pour over our data.
We will continue to receive more in the coming weeks. These associations have committed to not only supporting us on the strike line, but some have also pledged financial support. If a strike occurs, a statewide strike fund will be activated, allowing additional associations to contribute in support of our members. We have listened to our members and their resolve is strong. In solidarity, Karen Sabers, we are a vood. Thank you, Stephen Cobbs, Stephanie, and then Sandra Waller. Is that better? All right. Well, good evening. Thanks, uh, District Superintendent Nelson, uh, cabinet members, board members. Um, I stand before you tonight. Uh, first off, I wanted to condone or not condone I I don't take the threats of things lightly, and I'm sorry we had to go through that. One of the reasons I'm I'm also sorry, not just that it was what it was, but that we're now in a room like this and there's no cameras here to be able to see the group of blue and red over on the other side.