So I do I do have a question. So how is the student success advisories there one at each campus that are focusing just on these students that are getting these credits made up? >> Yes. because I mean I would think they'd be working handinhand with the counselors but maybe they don't need that same counseling background to do this >> they they are certified um and they are working with our counseling departments uh but they have a very separate task. They don't have a a typical alpha split or grade level split of students. They're identifying these a at risk students that are off track and working really hard to do whatever it takes to bring get them back on track. >> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> No problem. All right. And then the last one for this goal is the result of some of this work and the graduation rate.
Do we have any questions or comments from the board before I motion? President Wade, I just wanted thank everyone who went through all the stuff that I sent in for corrections. Um it took me a long time to to read through it and I know there was you know, minor stuff like the word been. Um but I appreciate the time taken to fix those. Thank you. President Wade, I I apologize. I I didn't I forgot my glasses. So all that conversation that we just had I meant to have right on 7.3. I'm embarrassed. It was about the employee contracts that was my motion. So I apologize to everybody for that confusion. I just uh I think I just made a Well, good news. >> place, but We've created no problems because we just discussed. I >> you're I think you're right. The employee contracts is what I was talking about, but it's okay.
It's the small well, one of the smallest ones here, but that's not something I mean it's not a huge budget or item to consider each year and maybe it's something that we don't need to bring up. Yeah. And and Jackie, just so you know, it's not the the luncheon recess aids, what we're trying to do is get the teachers so they're not doing lunch duties, so they can have additional time where they can collaborate and work together, right? So those are common planning times that we're trying to get them. We need that. What are you saying like you like food choice or something? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Agree, yes. So that's something like I would be comfortable with. I would say that for me the biology teacher is like number one philosophy. I mean it and it is you know when we talked about school choice philosophy that the response from Mrs.
Um we're very excited that our projected graduate graduation rate for this May is 95%. um and all indicators are showing that right now. So again, looking at all those things, we've already discussed the ontrack uh students with their grad trackers, the four-year plans done, um and all of those things that add up to the graduation rate, um are pointing that we've continually over the last 5 years improved on that districtwide. All right. Thank you. Goal five. >> Well, I have to say, sorry I got distracted because this is really amazing this um workbook that you put together. I mean, I it really does give give kids a vision for what CTE can do for them. But um I think that's amazing that we've really improved our graduation rate. That's that's a lot of improvement in just a a couple of years. So, thank you very much.
All right, great. >> that. I motion to approve the 2026-2027 contracts as presented. Second. Was that you, Mr. Harmon? Okay, thank you. Sorry. I Please vote. Yes, please. All right, all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries five zero for 7.3. This brings us to 7.4, approval of RFP number 26-02-31, the adoption of the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts or CKLA as the K-5 comprehensive core high-quality instructional material.
Guerra at times was how can we take in more kids when we don't have room in our schedule for these biology classes. So like not having a biology teacher is affecting I thought with my own kids who scheduled this year where it was it made it really hard to schedule things and it impacted our ability to take in money for money for school choice through the partnership. That's so I think that biology teacher is Well and especially where we're considering career pathways. I mean those are a lot of STEM based things and so It is not much of biology, anatomy, physiology. Like the forensic class is gone. Like So Tahanto doesn't have one biology >> one biology Okay. That's and everyone has to take biology. You did the math Yeah. And you want to talk about large class sizes in those some of those biology classes.
>> Awesome. Thank you. spent a half hour just >> All right. Well, hello again. I'm back and I have Courtney and Medina, our assistant director of special education that is going to co-present goal number five with you. Courtney, will you >> Awesome. Thank you. >> The clicker. We got to click through. All right. So, goal number five um is one of my favorite goals because it really encompasses everything that we've just talked about in goals one through four. So, we're looking at literacy, we're looking at math, we're looking at uh future college or future ready graduates, but we're looking at them by subgroups of students and that really is what you'll see. So, in goal five here, we're going to talk about special education or I should say Courtney's going to do that. We'll talk a little bit about our EL learners, our advanced learning opportunities for students, as well as our federal title one program.
Do I have any questions or comments from the board before I motion? Okay, great. I motion to approve RFP number 26-02-31, the adoption of Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts, CKLA, as the K-5 comprehensive core high-quality instructional material at a total cost of $1,302,022.40 over 5 years. Second. >> All right, great. Um I'm You tied. I was staring eye contact at you, Mr. Glover, so that's going to be That's going to get the nod. Um do we have to verbally Mr. Glover got the second on that one, Ms. Zimmerman. Um all those in favor? I. I. I. All those opposed? Um Oh. Sorry. Okay, great. I just want to explain my vote. Um I just want to say that you know, I I support um the curriculum, but I want to ensure that um that it is tightly aligned with Arizona standards, with Arizona um with the foundational skills, um and that the foundational skills time is protected, um and then any content outside the scope of ELA standards um is blocked, um and that you know, we we monitor to make sure that um students can't go outside of what is assigned.
Yeah. So the ELA coach I thought that's elementary, right? No, that's actually at the hold on I just want to make sure I'm right on The second one. Um So that's the district one. Yes, sorry about that. Yes, at the elementary both schools. Okay. Yep. And so there was argument at last meeting that our scores for ELA have not been improving in fact have decreased. I know. Whereas I do have a math coach and those scores have increased. You know that we're getting adopting or going to be adopting a new ELA program, right? That Dr. Connor will be working on and I know that this is a priority for him as well too coaches, right? All districts. That's that's how we move them forward with instructional coaches. I mean, you know, I'm looking at the biggest impact, you know, I agree with Beth about the biology teacher.
Um, in special education, she's going to go over this, but really it's our focus and our metric is to reduce minimally proficient scores in all of our special education programs. She's going to cover that. In English learner um program area, we have the Azela, which is the assessment that our EL students take each spring. And in that you'll see that we're in trying to increase our proficiency um in those levels. So that K8 we want our um Azela proficiency to increase to 25%. It was 19% 3 years ago and we want our 9 through 12 uh proficiency on the AELA to increase to 35% from a baseline starting point of 30%. So, a couple of things that we have changed um over the span of a few years and being part of this um district continuous improvement plan is really looking at how we um intentionally master schedule when it comes to our subgroups.
And with that, um I'll vote. Oh, I don't I can't vote. No, it was verbal. Oh, verbal. Okay. Uh with that, I vote I. Okay, so then correction. Motion carries 5 to 0. >> [clears throat] >> Does anyone have any uh requests for future agenda items? Oops. Um so in regards to the conversation earlier, I would like to see a um update made to policy IJJ um to add a um approving of deleting items and um also maybe like a 3 to 5 year sunset um doing, you know, complete inventory and and things like that. Uh I'd like to be able to update this policy um with that information. That's all. All right, I motion to adjourn this meeting. Second. That would be Ms. Schultz seconding. Uh all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Everybody drive safe and have a wonderful spring break, everybody.
I think that was a phenomenal discussion point. Um the ELA coach would have helped the whole district. Um I mean, in terms of the lunch recess aid and the specialist teacher at the elementary schools, I mean both of those again help quality quality of education for both elementary schools and then also teacher Yeah, and that being a help. Yeah, but it really didn't really Yeah, cuz the ones that are now, they don't have a prep period or those the the um I So, you're just spitballing on the specialist teacher thing. I I I hear like what Beth was just saying, it's two-fold that ask because it's one to have the prep period, but it's also about scheduling. So, I'm wondering if they have band like if it's all mixed, they're pulled out at different times, could band be that one the specialist the spot on whatever day they don't have a special at that Do you know what I'm saying?
And so there's been a lot of collaboration that has happened between campus administrators, the different departments, between special education, e um and all of the other groups on the campus um to make sure that when we look at master scheduling that we're keeping the subgroups at the forefront. Um so that work has happened uh across the board uh prek 12. Additionally, alongside of master scheduling efforts, we've looked at co-eing as well. So, really looking at aligning those co-teers together. I know that we've had lots of conversations about the co-e model and just how important it is for those students who are out in gened and that so that aligns with master scheduling efforts as well as um building out some training opportunities through our co-e scope and sequence um this year. And then on a program evaluation for our title one program is we really are in the midst of looking at are we utilizing our title one program and our dollars efficiently.
So, that it would we're not spending any more money, but we're giving those teachers back a period or prep and then the kids aren't getting pulled out of classes. >> [clears throat] >> Because then like there's kids that don't Oh, I didn't So, sitting in fifth grade, right, and you see when the teacher's trying to deliver math, kids are getting pulled out all day long like it the whole instruction's not happening. I'm going to tell you something and Brent and I have got coming and I've already talked time on learning, right? When we work there's about a law that says how much time the kids are supposed to have on learning. You don't count when they're passing in the hallways, you don't count when they're at recess, you don't count when they're at band cuz that's not really part of our curriculum. >> count. No, it's not.
Much of that program is towards FTE of various positions. But one thing that we found is that every school is doing something a little differently. And so we're currently building a framework for the upcoming years that are schools that do receive title one ser title one allocations so that we can make sure that we're being purposeful with that. The other thing that we're doing this year is doing an elementary resource program study, knowing that at our elementary um schools, the elementary resource program is one of our largest subgroups of students in special education. So, how we can be more intentional and we've been a little different this year in that in that we're not only um doing the study or the audit utilizing our research team, but we're also actually implementing some of those changes along the way. So, we're not waiting for that. We're already doing some changes.
So, we really need to be looking at, and that's something that Brent and I will be doing all summer is time on learning and making sure there's 900 and 990, right? There's There's laws that say we have we're accountable [clears throat] to that. Well, there was a Thursday at least that I could say that's right. Oh, yeah. Yep, and and she'll she can certainly talk to you about that at next meeting as well, too. You know, there are parents out there who want to get rid of both the band and also devices. They don't want devices in the classroom. Whether it's phones, iPads, Chromebooks. Elementary, yeah. I can't see how you do high school without devices. So, how much would we save by getting rid of all the all the devices? And it's not just elementary, it's uh right up through high school. Some people can't I know my Bible loves them.
And then gifted education really we can call that advanced learning opportunities. We're looking at all levels prek through 12 of how we can increase those advanced learning opportunities for our students. When we looked at it a few years ago, we saw that our gifted students, which is um primarily the program that we've done at the elementary level, that only serves a very small population of our students. And we have many students that can do other advanced learning opportunities. And so advanced learning opportunities is gifted accelerated programs, the traditional programs at the secondary level. That would be your international balorate IB programs, your dual enrollment programs at the high school level, and then your honors courses in secondary as well. But we also noticed that if we don't grow them prek through six, then we're not handing off or giving our secondary counterparts um student as many students that can have those advanced learning opportunities.
But you can't do high school without a device. Some people uh some people would argue differently. That's what some people feel. They feel devices are uh a detriment cuz whatever reason that you see. Go learn on your device while I'm over here doing this other thing. So, how much how much do I think it's a bigger issue than that, but you know, >> No, well, I'm talking about getting rid of them to save the the money which we need that extra tax support. The devices really expensive, aren't they? I mean, isn't that It would help the capital item and would help the budget. >> on computers, do we not? And we do testing on computers currently. So, they have they have to do MCAS on a I mean, there's no option. I mean, we had typing at the elementary Yeah. In the past, we used to do MCAS on paper and pencil.
And so we're doing uh growing that. And we're also moving away from traditionally in Gilbert it was the gifted program was heavily focused on just acceleration of curriculum particularly in the math area and now we're also looking at that depth and complexity as well as getting studentbased learning experiences in integrated into in a into a number of different environments. So, I'm really excited to share this information with you because through the um district continuous improvement um opportunities that I've had just really exciting because from every single person that is on that committee and across Gilbert public schools, there is a fundamental belief that all students can. And so in looking at the various goals that we have um written as part of our um differentiated learner opportunities, we're looking at decreasing those students that are scoring in minimally minimally proficient, but we're also looking at growth and in special education that is especially important.