>> And so when they're in here, >> like the equalizer set, all right, you know, fine. But we want >> loud music. So they turn it up and now it's >> like >> not mixed. Right. >> Right. Right. Right. >> It's like the car going down the road that you hear their trunk rattling or whatever. >> 1990s. Yeah. trunks. >> The hesitation that that I would have >> mark it for us like put tape on the >> well and it's I think it's different too of right like like I used to help with our sound in our church like it's different in an empty place versus a full place you know you adjust some things and you know and and you know I'm certainly >> not a sound engineer. I don't know if anybody wants to sign up for that job. Like, hey, can you perfectly balance that or EQ it, you know, whatever.
Um, so I've um I moved here in 2022 with my family. Um, I knew about the district. I had prior knowledge about the district. Um, so I knew what a good school district it was. I knew how caring and loving um, the teachers are and invested they are in their students and how the community cares about making sure that the that their students education is paramount. um to help set them on the path for the rest of their lives. And I often consider that education isn't just the grade that you get in the classroom, but there are all the other soft skills and the determination and the growth that you experience throughout your education. Um and boy, the Strand Regional School District really um prioritizes all the ways their students grow and not just academics. Um, so that was part of the reason why we chose to to move here.
I think it allowed me to kind of take away and say we have to put some a high level of time in kind of looking at the design to make sure that we have procedures in place and are tight on that because there's nothing more important than the safety of our staff and students. So that that was it for me. >> Yeah. to to build on that, one of the interesting things hearing from districts from all over the country and how they approach this was um some different ways of approaching training. So um they talked a lot about uh using tabletop exercises to allow people to talk through um events and procedures before trying a drill or having them in real time. So, as we're building new uh procedures and protocols, having these um these learning tools to try and get people comfortable with them so that when you know if the time ever comes for an incident, people feel very prepared and they've they've kind of gone through the training from the ground up.
So we feel that the the class size of 17.8 is appropriate for them. Second grade, 38% of those children next year are requiring special education services including 504 and reading and math intervention. Our third grade, 35% of that class is requiring special education, including 504 in reading and math intervention. Our fourth grade, this is the one that's going down from six sections to five sections. They will be at 18.8 and 38% of that class is requiring 504 or special education or reading and math intervention. our fifth grade. You can see that this one's uh 47% of the class requires special education services um and targeted uh students with specialized services and intervention. Our sixth grade, this is a smaller group and this is a class that 40% of our students are requiring. But what's tricky about this class is additional 26% of the students participate in individual or group counseling.
Thank you. >> And we are happy to report to the board of education that the district will continue participating in the state's summer assistance for classified employee program, more commonly known as the classified summer saver. This bill appropriates $90 million uh for uh allocation statewide to classified employees qualify and elect to participate. Employees who participate can receive up to $1 for each $1 the employee uh elects to have withheld from their monthly paycheck up to 10% of their income. Uh to qualify, employees must be employed for 11 months or less uh for the fiscal year and make uh equal to or less than the annual income limit of $62,400. Employees who are interested in participating and qualify must notify the HR office um on or before March 1st. Thank you. Moving on to item 10.1, approval of consent agenda. Can I have a motion? >> Motion to approve.
If we look all the way to the bottom and for the elementary school, we're just looking. That's the cost for doing core samples and testing to find out what exactly is wrong with the foundation. That's not even fixing it. That's just the testing. we're down to a total of $48 million to make those fixes. So, I feel like it's important to really go through and prioritize what we really need. Um whether it's safety and security, some fencing, the elementary school assessment. And I want to bring that recommendation after the advisory committee looks at it so I can bring that recommendation to the board on some things we might need to look at fixing. >> And we're well beyond our time. We're happy to come back and spend more time and go through more of this and more of the information we have as well. Yeah, >> We're happy to do it.
But we had to do it or we wouldn't have been able to have aotted raises that we gave. And it's just it's frustrating because the funds are there yet it's it's a it's doable and allowable to move funds but then you get dates for due. So >> hey Greg I got a question. So um my daughter's high school they are closing a lot of the theater schools and they're not on this list. So when they're are they closing them before because they know they're going to be >> Yes. Yes. You know, but if you take a look at like, you know, this is Round Valley who's approaching and they have been for over a year. Round Valley's got a high school, a middle school, and an elementary school. They don't have anything else like those three. And they are in a small mountain community up in um Springerville.
So when we go through the impact checks and I'll tell you a few years ago I think it was the feedback was being was being um taken as something that was a criticism where now campuses are walking in just you know books wide open honesty sharing where their struggle areas are sharing where their positives are. Um, but across the board we're just seeing improvement. And so I don't want to say that just to kind of skip over the question because there are areas of improvement. Can I say there's one high school campus that's really struggling? No. Can I say there's one elementary campus? Absolutely not. Are there specific content areas at specific grade levels within specific campuses? Yes. Are there teams on campuses that maybe aren't high functioning? Yes. But what we're hearing is a principal walk in, an instructional coach walk in and share the story and say, "Here's our plan moving forward.
They have to follow fill out certain forms, follow certain timelines and so uh the auditor general provides some guidance as to what sample sizes to utilize. From there it's our audit discretion in terms of which uh schools and then from there uh it the sample itself is just haphazard. Uh so we're not specifically looking for certain students in this case but it's just a haphazard selection. >> Thank you. Um so what the auditor general kind of pivots how to kind of dip in those anomalies. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, another thing that I wanted to ask you is, um, are there ways are there, uh, flags or how are you notified in certain accounts? Um, I in general, I know that you can kind of get a tone and get a pulse like anybody in their career, they have like an idea of what to look for and stuff like that.
>> Yes. Their finals are before that anyway. So, yes. >> Perfect. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. >> They're out. >> Just wanted to make sure. >> Jamie just kind of brought something up that we had issues with years ago. I'm sorry if I never brought this up because it just came to my my memories on this. a lot of many years where the kids went down state as far as track concerned >> and they rushed home got in their cap quite a few of them got in their cap and gowns to graduated rushing home from down state participating in the state track event. Did we look at that scenario? >> I for graduation. I was not aware of that, but um that is something that we surely can take into consideration. I know that >> I I know this is the 11th hour, but >> maybe take a look and see.
And I don't expect, you know, our athletic workers or our coaches or the folks that are sitting in, hey, can you can you get that EQed perfectly somehow, but but again, maybe they can come in. May maybe I can I certainly will ask them like, hey, would you come in at night? Like, I'll get you free popcorn and a hot dog. Like, you know, I heard the pretzels are good and can you can you come in, you know, do some things while you're while we got a full gym. So, but yeah, I my thought was just to kind of get all those um different folks because I think it's you've got like a few different things out there and kind of where do they all tie in together? >> What makes the most sense? >> I mean, part of the hesitation is you spend >> you spend that money, how do we know that it's actually going to do it?
Um, I do have a little guy in the district. He is a first grader this year. Um, many tears were shed last year when he became uh a kindergartener, but um, I'm going to be around, right? He's he's young and I want to see him graduate from Dantis. So, I'm really in it for the long haul to be a part of his community and invested in his success, but not just his success, but but the students of the regional school district. Um, I am a teacher by trade. I have pretty much t been in the realm of education since undergrad. Um, I have mostly taught um the high school level or above, although I did do a short-term um short-term, long-term um substitute in a middle school um which I give so much credit to middle school teachers. They are angels. Um that is a level of patience that I don't know if I can possess beyond my own children.
And since you mentioned security, um, after hearing our IT talk, do you think we need to start taking further consideration on on more technology or having given them the asset financial asset to get more training to implement those security in in in our facility? >> Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think we have Mr. Lavoy um and our larger team and operational level have meetings that include IT include our safe office include our safety uh leadership um kind of our leaders uh and eventually if we get to some practice we'll involve some other students and staff but that's kind of like we need input from all those departments to kind of if we want a recommendation for a particular product or budget towards something I think you know Mr. Lavo is kind of leading that to make sure if we have that we'd come back like to you if we needed that.
So, we feel that within the guidelines that we set, we feel that we are right within the board of education guidelines and we're on the lower end of those guidelines, but we feel that our team and our teachers will be able to work with all the students in in that um in those specific numbers in the section. What's very important is really looking at our expenditure and performance. our per people expenditure and how it relates to the next generation of accountability index. In each of your meetings that you've had with the the principles, they they've spoken to you about the next generation of accountability index and how we are performing against our our peers. The Canton public schools ranks 71 out of 165 reporting districts and agencies of per pupil expenditure. Canton's per pupil expenditure is below the average. So our per per pupil expenditure and this is last year's.
>> Second a motion. >> Any discussion? Seeing none, student board member preference. Colleagues, please place your vote. And the item passes five to zero. Moving on to item 12.1 presentation of 2025 2026 local control and accountability plan LCAP January update. Miss Garcia Medina turn it over to you. Thank you, board president uh Benz. Good evening, uh board president Benavid, board members, uh Superintendent Ortega, cabinet, and audience. Um I'm thrilled to be here this evening uh to share with you our midyear progress on our um local control and accountability midyear update. Um it's part of our LCAP plan. It's a requirement. Um this plan is includes our district goals. Uh it includes how the goals will be measured, how much funding will be spent on each of the goals and what specific actions and services are related uh in terms of reaching uh these goals for the district.
Yeah, >> Mike. And we have I'm sorry. Go ahead, gentlemen. >> You guys got the numbers. Yes. Thank you, gentlemen. And and they've done a lot of work with us behind the scenes, too. And so hopefully we can fill in some of those gaps, too. Um, we had Justin and Nathan who are going to present quick. We're going to have to do it speed mode, gentlemen. They only have a few slides each. So like a five minute turnaround for the streaming for the board meeting. >> Okay, that works. Want to go to this next slide. >> So transportation's newest buses were purchased in 2018. We did get a new one in 21 via Volkswagen settlement that we got rid of in 1993 and they gave us that one for free. Most of our buses from 2018 are sitting right around 90,000 miles. They're they're getting to the end of their life.
There's not a whole lot of industry in there. So, there's not a whole lot of people coming in. So, >> it's the people who have always lived in Springerville that are >> keeping the school alive. >> Yeah, they're still down 225 kids. But I think the big thing here is when you look at the analysis, look at the big numbers. 14% over four years, 62% over four years, 60% over four years. >> They don't really close. They don't have anything consolidating consolidating a middle school with an elementary, >> but their elementary school really isn't all that big. It's not a big school. >> Yeah. So, it would have to be taking um sixth and seventh graders and putting them at the elementary and putting eighth grade in the high school. >> So, than taking over his school. There are really no penalties applied if you're in high risk area.
Here's how it's being addressed. Here's what we've done over the last 45 days to ensure that that doesn't continue." So where before I think as we started the process, it was a bit more guarded and and and um maybe not as open to the feedback, now it's just dialogue. And so I think as we've progressed in this process, and to be honest, as Dr. McCord told us, "Everything's on the table and we're not hiding a thing. We're here to get better for our kids. We're here to get better for our community." I think that's just trickled to to every position. And so, it's an open book. Um, I can't tell you right now that there's one campus where there's extreme concern or there's one campus where we feel like we have it figured out. Uh, but there are pieces in there of every bit of that and our job is to go in strategically and ensure that they have the supports that they need to be successful.
Can you expand on that and how the district is doing maybe compared to anybody else etc? >> Uh yes, thank you for the question. Uh I would say the the items noted uh in the questionnaire specifically uh this past year were uh things very commonly noted uh in questionnaires by uh either Higgley in the past or other districts. um in terms of the number of uh what we'd say no. So every question is a yes or a no. It's black and white. It's either if we find one transaction that uh may have an error, the answer has to be answered no in the questionnaire. So knowing that the number of no answers I would say for Higgley are uh less than uh the average that we see in all the audits of public school districts. >> Okay. Thank you so much for your honesty. I I really appreciate the fact that we I mean obviously we have to legally do this.
I I you know, we're looking to approve this next week, right? But I don't know how we can circumvent. I don't know how we can do anything about that, but that I just feel that's a disservice to those students that's downstate participating in track and field only to come back and try to graduate that same day. >> So, Mr. Brown, I can tell you from having my children in another district, those schedules are made by the state and we don't have any. And I'm telling you some districts those kids are missing gra my kids they had people missing graduation because they had to compete and that >> but does that make it right >> but it's beyond their control is what I'm saying >> we have a certain part of control because we you know we propose a calendar we approve a calendar I don't know the answer I'm just saying at least can we look at that that opportunity we can't do anything with the state but what can we do on our side to offset the pain that those is >> we might not know that.