>> Uh so moved by Mr. Angel and seconded by Miss Basin. Are there any questions or comments? thinking based upon teacher performance, how does it work? I mean, not bolts here. Two-step process. First was we needed to apply to be a participant in the grant process, which we did last year. Got us into the pool. Once we were approved to be into the pool, you had to get that in by a certain date. then we just have to follow the parameters uh provided to us by the state on uh the criteria to make these selections. So the the instructions were given to us. We did not make up the instructions. >> Are are you limited in the number of people? >> Absolutely. We are limited to the to the number of people largely due to the fact that we are given to award which is basically less than we we could give out.
But as we mentioned uh recently uh with talking with one of the local reporters here is as far as expectations, a lot of the things that need to be done to make schools safer may be less visible or even invisible but more impactful on the people. In the number one way we find out about weapons and plots and kids who are going to cause harm to themselves and others is when kids come forward and tell an adult that they trust. And that's hard to show to the community about those relationships, but it's the most impactful thing that we we see. Um, and it's dealing with the people part uh that is deserves equal amount of attention and not just focusing on hardware products and technology. So that's why we do a comprehensive approach and we we've looked at what's in writing before we came. We interviewed district leadership by Zoom the last couple of weeks to get a district district perspective and now we're going building to building.
>> So, pending any questions I'd like to submit for approval. >> I do want to tell you how wonderful it was to have the pages at the bottom. Made it much easier. >> It was hard to do at all. >> Is there anybody got any discussions to be had? All right. Recommendation for approval. I move to approve. >> I'll second. Any discussions? All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> Thank you. You're welcome. All right. On to reports. Um I'm going to share some information about our sixth through 8th grade ELA adoption that we have on an approval request for you to do in a little bit. Um one of the things that the state is doing is adding some science of reading requirements. Um not just K through five but K through eight now. Um and also one of the goals that Mr. Divy and I have had since I started in this position was getting an aligned curriculum.
We're also very conscientious of our studenttoteer ratio to make sure we hit that threshold. Um but uh we are very excited to be able to offer this. Um we will provide this opportunity to our teachers pending board approval and a competitive process where they express interest um starting first with our licensed teachers here at the high school. >> Thank you Dr. Jets. Sorry about that brother. Now I I >> am looking for a second to Mrs. Miller's >> and then I'll second that motion. >> Thank you Mr. Wall. >> I will absolutely entertain some comments and discussion. >> So this may not be for them but this may be for you guys and you may not have that answer but as I read through the document uh it notes that food service will be district paid and transportation will be district paid but there's no dollar figures associated with that.
Any questions or comments on the blue ribbon updates? >> Miss Lawrence. >> Oh, Miss Dun. I just wanted to extend my gratitude to Dana for ensuring that the families I saw because of the renovations that are being done at Craig Academy that the sharing place has moved locations and um just really feel like you guys have done an extraordinary job of making sure that the community is aware of that move. So just want to make sure again on this forum that we're able to share that that's moving to a church. Is that correct? >> Yes, temporarily. >> Temporarily until May 25th is what is that what I saw or sometime in May? Yes. The end of the school year. >> So, just thank you so much for that communication and for making sure that we can still serve um the students and families of Lawrence Township.
Two, as other people have mentioned, I have seen board resolutions made. So I ask that you now make a formal resolution declaring that the detention facility at Daartan Sweetwater is a safety risk to our >> it. >> Yes. >> Okay, >> that's all. >> Next up, we go to superintendent and governing board updates with the first uh student update. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Uh Mr. Musei will introduce our student. Yes, President Scavara, members of the board, Dr. Croto. Uh, back with us tonight to provide an update from the student uh Daizart uh student council uh is Ben Trang. He's a senior at Willow Canyon High School. Welcome, Ben. [laughter] >> Good evening, Pres, President Skavvar, Governing Board, Dr. Croto and cabinet. My name is Ben Trong, and I am a senior class president of student council at Shadow Ridge High School and president of our district leadership council.
I am on our bargaining team and um I I'm also a community member. I live uh one and a half miles from South maybe. And what else? Um I'm also the venue coordinator at Hinsdale Humane Society, which is kind of cool. So, but that's like very very part-time. And that's about all I have. >> Thank you. Thank you. Oh my speeders. Hello, I am Kathleen Conquest and I have been working for the district since September of 2023. But I am not new to the district as I am a 2013 alum. I am currently the executive administrative assistant at DRO South High School, specifically in the data processing role. What is a data processor, you may ask? Uh it's a mix mash of a lot of things but primarily I assist with the master schedule placing teachers in rooms students in classes and making sure that unique schedules get handled.
And so I want to note that. I want to name that. I want to especially say that our our staff, our students, our community is really committed to a process of continuous improvement. That is in our policy. Our goal is always to think about how we can do better. And we when we make mistakes we need to stop, reflect on those and then make it. So you're thinking did something happened? No, nothing happened. I just feel annually that it's important to remind the community of this as things come up and also just taking us back to our strategic plan. You will hear for and for the public regularly when we make our presentation, we'll refer to our strategic plan. If we don't do it enough, we need to do it more and we need to make sure that you understand how all these things fit in.
Um so again, I think it's great because we don't do any electronic games. Everything is old school board games here and the kids do have a lot of fun. They're playing different games each week. >> Lego club, which I think is run by Jen. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, Lego Club is something that is run um for 12 weeks in the spring. We do game club in the fall. Um I co-sponsor that with Chiselle, Papa Lewis. Um the kids who come every week, they continue to come and build. So I save their projects week from week to week and the kids continue to build upon what they've done the previous week and they are so creative and they really wish that they could have this club longer than 12 weeks. So and then media club is run by Tama Astro and Katie Marshall. Um, so this was a pilot year for the media club.
So financial implications we put on here every grade that is changing the amount of money we use is the amount that it would cost for um a new teacher including salary and benefits. That's why we use the 55,000. So overall across the district, we would be going down two FTEEs, so two teachers. Um we're not anticipating any riffs or anything like that because we have many more teachers than that who will be retiring. Um so there would be no teachers released based on uh the enrollment trend going down. Not the enrollment trend, but the the number of teachers. Next steps that we have uh are finalizing. This is actually almost done. Uh Mr. Daroo's been working on this uh with the admin team. We're going to work on this again with the principles tomorrow. Finalizing the open positions list. So as we um have retirees, we as we have people who have resigned from the district um have we we have grades that are rolling up like if it's a second grade we need to add a section to.
Um, keep a little high level. Okay. So, um, right here you can see we've got, um, area. So we start off with area A, B, and C. So that's area C, that's area B, and that's area A. So this is the event center. That is the town office area, and that is the school area. The school area is three stories tall. The town area is two stories, and then the event center is one story. Um, so construction progress. As we get into the pictures, you'll see that every uh construction on the building itself started in the event center and then worked counterclockwise. So, from this uh picture right here, well, I'll move on to the next one, which is a little better picture. Um, so these are drone footages that uh Hank uh took for us um just uh was it last week? Just last week.
So that was underfunded grants in short. >> New ball game. >> Yes. Any other questions or comments? All right. So, uh, there being no question or comments, we'll move to a vote. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Nays. >> The vote carries. 5-0. Moving on to action item 5.05, approval of preschool fees and charges. Mr. Ree. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Members of the board, tonight we bring before you preschool fees and charges uh for the 2627 school year. A few changes to note uh for the upcoming school year in this program. Uh currently, the morning students uh attend three days a week. We'll be moving that to four days a week. Uh likewise, the charge for that uh will go up to $240 for the monthly fee instead of the $180 as we're adding that additional day. uh for the afternoon which already goes five days a week.
So we're in town this week and next to visit the schools. We're doing about three schools a day on average. Uh and uh then we'll be back at the end of March to finish up the rest of the district and also your support sites, administrative, transportation and facilities. And then following that we'll uh do a brief debrief on our last day here just to give a high level uh exit interview and our report will be back to the district we say within eight weeks two months of the last day that we're here. >> Will you be dealing with any policy uh issues? So, we'll be looking at those as well as far as what our policies are and and how they uh measure with other districts. Yes. Already done. One of the reasons that we ask for about two different pages of documents, policies, procedures, emergency plans, and my colleague Chuck Hibard uh diligently goes through looking at those so that we can make sure what we want to see is what's in writing, what's your policy say, plans and paper, and then what's happening in a building to look for any potential disconnects between policies and practice.
Um, so these are just steps in that process to make sure that we're aligned. Um, so we went through the adoption process with our middle school ELA team and uh, we started that in October and through that they piloted lessons. They were able to work with some of our representatives from Amplified and I'm going to invite Mrs. to come up and just kind of share a little bit about that process um from her perspective as a teacher um and how we came to agree on amplify. Thank you for allowing me to come and have the opportunity to talk to you guys tonight. Um I've been in teaching English language arts since 2004. Um and so Becky filled in a lot of the holes there as far as when the time I started. um and principal clemens and I sat down in August and we talked about the changes that were coming from the state level on approved curriculum.
Do we have rough estimates and where will that come from? >> So yeah, transportation is not covered through the reversible piece that they were just talking about. And the state does reimburse for those core academic um subjects. Um we have to submit a report. Um we do a beginning report and then then an estimate and then we do a final report. Um it's right around I would say close to 90%. I'm just ballparking it for you. Um on what we get reimbursed. The other piece of that that we cannot cover or that's not reimbursed through the state um would come out of the education fund. >> Okay. Even the fruit service or would it come out of the food service fund? >> Food service. Um I need to check into that one. But it should be a summer feeding program which should be then feeding right back into the um 800 Oh, sorry.
Much appreciated. >> Thank you, Miss Lawrence. >> And not just our families. Um, I just wanted to commend all of the work that's going on because I know we've had lots of snow, we've had lots of ice, we've had lots of setbacks and yet we are still ahead in some of our elementary schools according to what we heard in our last work session. I just wanted to clarify, Dr. Nes, for anybody who's wondering why we're not moving folks into classrooms. We had talked about this in our work session, but just for the record, could you explain? >> Sure. Mary Cast will be the one that we would be able to, but during any construction project, we really try our best not to move a teacher more than one time. Um, and the teachers that are currently in the portables are not bound for those new rooms.
At our most recent meeting, we shared campus updates and celebrated the strong involvement that students are bringing into the last quarter of this of the year. As we are moving towards the end of the month of February, many of our student council members are returning from AASC, the Arizona Association of Student Council state convention, feeling revitalized with brand new ideas and inspiration for how to communicate and interact with our communities. At Shadow Ridge, students and parents within the community of Shadow came to paint night, making it the most packed and crowded it has ever been in the history of running this event. Valley Vista iso is excited to host their first ever spring carnival on Saturday, April 4th. The event will feature vendors, a DJ, carnival rides, and inflatables and in booths from values clubs and programs showcasing their work from this year. At Willow Canyon, stu students are successfully giving back to their community by having an amazing turnout with their clothing drive with bags upon bags of clothes ready to be donated.
I track the students completion of driver education making sure that they have completed the classroom component necessary for graduation. I also helped take part in helping with unique scheduling from the counseling and student support services offices with student aids, late arrivals, early dismissals, as well as varsity athletic releases to just name a few. Additionally, I am responsible for handling data requests for my building such as GPA runs, students on free and reduced lunch program, plus many historical projects requested by administration team. When not at work, I am also the secretary for the support staff association and I'm currently on the negotiations team for the next contract. I am also a firm mother and enjoy going on Pokémon Go dates with my husband. Lastly, you may be wondering about the t-shirts and why we're all wearing the one job shirt. Well, that is because the association believes one job should be enough.
whether it's uh questions about special education, inclusivity, our finance, um all of those are are named specific things that our district is working on and investing in. And we want you to know when you have concerns because things aren't moving fast enough or moving in a direction you don't agree with, we want to invite you to really engage. What does the strategic plan say about? What's the process the board has approved for us to follow? This is not my plan. This is not an individual board. This is a board approved document legally bound that's guiding our work. So when there are things that are disconnecting, um I've just been thinking a lot board about helping and helping our principles, helping our district level staff bring us back to the strategic plan as the way in which we're going to address these questions. um our door is open and even when we have differences, we want to invite all of us to reflect on our district mission which is that together we empower, support and motivate all students.
It's the first that we've had it. So, um, it went about 10 12 weeks. >> 12 weeks all together. >> 12 weeks altogether. We managed to get out two episodes which if you go to the next slide, if you would like to scan that QR code, it will take you to the YouTube uh station which has our first two pilot episodes, but students would um pick stories. They would, you know, put their ear to the ground, see what was going around in school, and they wrote, directed, filmed, edited. like it is really basically I'm so proud of these kids and what we were able to accomplish in just the 12 weeks. It's incredible. So, um sir, >> um as a former member of the technology group, we did student news in the elementary schools kind of as an in-class project and some of these kids remembered that and they were able to apply those same skills that they had learned before.