Their enthusiasm has added a special sparkle to our school and they're already making a difference as they are planning our upcoming light up the night with kindness family dance bringing joy, connection, and just a special glow to our families. Our partnership with think together continues to be a cornerstone of student success. Our site coordinator is a valued partner on our leadership teams, part of school site council, SEESAC, and our PBIS team, ensuring our students have guidance and encouragement throughout the day, spilling over into our afterchool program. At Magnolia, we know that positive behavior and emotional well-being are the foundation of learning. Through our Mustang merit system, students are recognized for making wise choices, inspiring others, leading by doing, and developing solutions. They earn access to events like the Mustang Market, glow discos, and cornhole tournaments. Our school social worker also organizes inclusive lunch events and provides needs-based support groups.
If there is a spirit week, you can always count on her to go out all out each day above and beyond at everything she does. She is always on time and always completes her work in a timely manner. She is an example of who we want our Blige students to be. So, congratulations and keep up the great work. We're proud of you. Boy, you have to go over there and get your picture taken. >> Great job, student of the months. Now, we would like to welcome up coach Kloff to recognize our athlete of the month. >> Shaun Dean Ko, could you come up? Here's your plaque. One of the things that's really neat about these experiences is that when we start involving people in this process and talking to people about our students, it's amazing. I sent out this email to the to the faculty and to our coaches and we make sure when we get all the feedback, we go to the coaches and and make sure that this is appropriate information that we get.
I'm going to walk you through that in a moment. Um, the Arizona Revised Statutes uh gives our K12 public school districts a formula, a debt limit for the issuance of bonds. You're 100 million under the statute. We know you wouldn't go anywhere near that. Generally speaking, when I see numbers like this, it tells me that districts may be behind on their capital improvement and their deferred maintenance. So, the good news here is you have plenty of what we call statutory bonding capacity. And I'm going to round numbers at about 100 million. Okay. Sorry about all the numbers here. Let me just spend a few minutes on this. I've got three scenarios for you. First one is 30 million. Um, these gentlemen to my right are going to present after me and they'll give you kind of a better idea of what they're seeing in terms of your capital improvement needs.
So, this is definitely a list that you don't ever want to see yourself on. So when we actually get into the actual report, so you're going to come down and you're we're going to take a look and you're going to see a whole bunch of things in here that say that we are a high risk. And we're going to go through each one of those. But first, let's get through some of the easier ones first. Down at the very bottom of the page, receiverhip. We are not in receiverhip. Our district's tax rate is not frozen. and we do not qualify for a small school budget adjust. So, there's three categories right off the top that we're looking pretty good. So, since we're down at this bottom part, we're going to start talking about uh capital monies that can redirect operations. So when we propose our budget in June and it gets approved in July, we have the opportunity of moving funding from capital to to M or moving funding from M into capital.
So, we're not looking at end of year versus middle of the year. Everything is like December from the following years. So, the first one I'm you're going to see right here is first grade CBMR. CBMR is a reading assessment and it's how many words can you fluently read in one minute. Okay, this is super important is we've got new research coming out from the state of Arizona that says 88% of struggling readers at the end of first grade still struggle by fourth grade. This is an important marker that we take very seriously. You're going to see that year-over-year we've made steady improvement starting with 52% proficient. Now we're at 56. Um, while I would love that to be a 100% um there's also some I am I'm really focused on that there was steady improvement as I feel like it's not as volatile and we can kind of replicate the results that we're seeing.
But anyway, we'll just keep moving. All right. So, for Higgley happenings, uh, first I would like to invite up the Higgley High School thespians. If you guys would come up to the front, please. [applause] While they're coming up, I'd like to just talk about this wonderful group from Higgley High School. They have some exciting news from the recent annual Thesbian state festival. The advance company received a superior rating in the one act competition. The troop 697 achieved gold honors for the seventh consecutive year. Riley Close and Francisco Navaro served as student thespian officers, helped manage the event for nearly 2,700 attendees and Higgley High earned the award of distinguished for the fourth year recognizing their community service and their performance quality among over 100 schools. In addition to this, our assistant principal from Higgley High School, Pam Simmons, was named the administrator of the year.
Harper joined the performance as a percussionist with the fifth and sixth grade ensemble. Don't miss the next opportunity to celebrate these emerging artists at the Honor Band and Orchestra concert on February 21st at Maricopa High School Performing Arts Center. Input from more than 2400 students, families, and staff and community members through the Hanover Safety Survey is informing our understanding of school climate and guiding our next steps as a district. A key area of student feedback showed encouraging progress, including a 7% increase in feeling safe at school and improvements in consistent rule enforcement, communication skills, and emotional regulation. In response, the district is elevating student voice through youth participatory action research and feedback opportunities while schools continue strengthening relationships with PBIS, restorative practices, advisory structures, and multiddisciplinary safety teams. Next steps include connecting these effort efforts more directly to to survey results and improving studentfriendly communication about safety measures, particularly at middle and high school.
John Puda. The link is this here. And our executive secretary to our superintendent clink uh clicked on that link and it was virtually nothing regarding that link. So it's not worthy to read out because it's nothing there. So So Mr. Patruda, if you hear us, if you want to resubmit the contents of that link, please do and I will read it out at our next board meeting. Moving on, do we have any board updates? I would The only thing I'd like to say is um Showquire held their spectacular event which was um 18 teams. I think it was seen by the most we had the highest attendance ever. Um we had some pretty fantastic schools. Our kids are completely amazing. The fact that the time that they spend during the week and then they were here Friday, they were here Saturday, they were here Sunday.
I think too at the, you know, we can take a look if, you know, if we get towards the very end of the year and we think we've got some flexibility, maybe we do one, you know, or something like that. It this is again not something that's set in stone, you know, or or etched in stone. Um, so it it's just trying to trying to be a little proactive and think through this. Here we are in, you know, early February, got a long long ways ahead in in the budget year. Um, and so, um, just kind of looking at that. So, um, I don't know if anybody has any thoughts on it or most of you probably don't ride school buses very often. I mean, >> do we usually have one or two extras for when one does break down? >> I mean, this doesn't hurt anything >> of that, I wouldn't think.
And just for clarity, you're talking about Jessica is >> so this was a vote for >> hiring the superintendent and we did it but not hiring but signing the contract to the contract and we did it via Zoom. >> Unfortunately with technology sometimes you have issues and Jess is fro connection got frozen so we couldn't actually hear her vote on the Zoom and so this is just to correct the record that Jess did in fact vote. >> And actually Dr. Bren Conway joining us today as well too. So we we want that in the public record that you had a union as well too. So congratulations. >> Okay, that motion is to amend the meeting minutes. It's been seconded. Anyone have anything to say about that? >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone against? >> Okay, now can I have a motion, please? So that motion passes.
Uh she was leading uh the educational programs and keeping keeping everything together. She was a person that could uh manage an amazing amount of uh isu uh initiatives at one one given time. She woke up in the morning, was here extremely early and stayed here late into the night. I think she got up in the morning, came here, went home and went to bed every day cuz it was that challenging in those days when when the school was being renovated and we needed someone to really uh facilitate and uh manage all that was going on during those times, a time when uh there was so much uh change and happen things happening. We had students that were uh in uh buildings outside of the facility, outside of our grounds. Uh we had students that were in trailers. We and uh Mary Beth was the uh one that really was uh overseeing a lot of the the planning and the organization of all these changes that happened.
And Mr. Daniels, Mr. Bush and I are unanimous in our recommendation to the board. >> Thank you, Michelle. Russell, do you have anything you looked at? >> No. Thank you. So, all the board had a chance, we sent out the uh resumes, you had a chance to look at and you had a chance to see Amy's. And by the way, Amy's right there in the front row if you don't know. She's right there.
Um and even a contender at the national level. So, we think you're all world, but you know, maybe on the next round, but honestly, Brian, we're so proud of you. You're now our claim to fame. Um, I had to fill out some of our accomplishments in our budget book and I got to claim you, which was awesome. But we also know that there's a lot that goes into to all of it. The application process, Dr. Zelita, you know, led that those initial days of of application, but those applications are easy when there's a lot to write about. Um, and so I just want to say thank you so much for representing us in such a great way. Um, you know, we almost uh tonight with the weather, I don't know if you guys know this, but at the Bushnell when we're getting close to celebrating the big day at the Bushnell, we had another a big weather event and the whole thing had to be rescheduled.
We make it a point to celebrate our Mustangs out loud. Monthly awards, assemblies, and recognition programs give our students a stage to shine, honoring their academic achievements, strong character, and attendance. We are proud of the balance we've built at Magnolia. strong academics, a connected community and social emotional support, and joyful celebrations. Our wild mustangs thrive because they are empowered, valued, and ready to succeed. And we are grateful for your support as we continue this exciting journey.
And I can tell you a lot of the emails that I got, if I was going to read them all, we'd be here all day because Sha Dean's just amazing. She's currently a sophomore at Blige High School. She's a three sport athlete. She's involved in sever several extracurriculars. If I could just read her level of involvement right now at the high school. Um, you know, she she does volleyball, she plays basketball, and she also participates in softball in the spring. So, she's a three sport athlete. Um, one of her teachers said she's a vocal leader, honor student, student council member, active tribal member, respected by peers, determined, energetic, and punctual. her basketball coach, uh, coach, um, Harris said, "Shanned or Shaine Ko is a varsity and JV girls basketball player who represents our program with a positive attitude and strong work ethic. She consistently shows perseverance, is coachable, and strives to improve both on and off the court." Sha Dean is a great example of the character and effort we value in our student athletes.
I think it's pretty significant as I understand it. And so, let's start. I'll slow this one down, then we'll go through the next two pretty quickly. We spent a lot of time with staff on this over the last couple of weeks. Um, so this is a schedule that would be included if you call a bond election in your voter pamphlet. It's it's a little bit numberies, if you will, for our voters out there, but the state requires us to be very transparent with our voters as you all know. So, let me walk you through some of the math. So, column one is our fiscal year. We're in 2526. you're working on your 2627 budget relatively soon. If you have a November of 26 election, it will impact your 2728 fiscal year. Okay? So, just kind of for the board and and for the community. Um, your tax base, the assessed value in column two, that's what we just went over.
We do have those options. So as you can see over the five years, we've averaged 16.06%. And when we look at that, it's just the last two years that we have moved money out of capital and into M. the the three years previous, you know, we didn't move anything out.
One of the things that we've got is we had the literacy summit this year. The literacy summit we were able to do for all kindergarten through sixth grade teachers. We had one teacher from each campus come for a full day PD focused on literacy engagement strategies. What we wanted to see and inspire our teachers to do is let kids that can do the reading do the reading. That's really what we want to do is if the kids need different scaffolds and supports, we're all in. We'll give it to them. But there are students in every one of our classes, even in kindergarten, that are ready to read. And we have to give time during the instructional day for them to read. I also wanted to note that this assessment is the first time that first graders see this. We introduced this assessment in December of first grade.
So, could we give a round of applause to the FPS? [applause] All right. So, here's what I'd like you to do. We'll just start on this end. Could you introduce yourself to We won't do who you brought with you tonight. It's too much. And then what year in school you are and just pass it all the way down, please? >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> I'm Jay Bernett. I'm a senior at Higgley High School. >> I'm Karia Then. I'm also a senior. I'm Elizabeth Neville and I'm a senior. I'm Zoe Bellose. I'm also a senior. I'm Lindsay [clears throat] French and I'm a senior. >> I'm Hank Cop and I'm a senior. >> I'm Jacob Ronald and I'm a junior. >> I'm Sky Cornado. I'm a junior. >> I'm Francisco Navaro. I'm also a junior. >> I'm Riley Close and I'm a senior. >> I'm Sean Kelly and I'm a senior.
This feedback guides real practical in improvements and makes our schools safer places to work and learn. And that's my report. >> Thank you, Dr. Lman. Would it be possible to share that doc from the legislative forum uh with all of the board members? >> Absolutely. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to governing board member reports. Member Rashal.