Reader
Browse passages, annotate evidence, and export with full provenance for citation.
And there are some things that we simply can't change. you know, we we have to have electricity and water and sewer and telephones and those kinds of things. Um and and if we're running those uh if if we are expending money in those lines of the budget um really close to what you know, if we budget what's really close to what we actually spend, there's not much there to cut. So, uh uh it forces us to look at positions. Unfortunately, it means for this year uh that after many discussions um and conversations um that we need to cut 21 positions from our uh from our district. At least that's my recommendation. There were other al you know there are other ways that you can move these these chest pieces around or or or chucker pieces whatever you want to call them around. Uh my first consideration and the first consideration of those who were involved in these discussions was what can we do uh what what can we do to as much as possible maintain uh programs and services for students uh which are as close to the current year as possible balanced by retaining the employees who would be remaining.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
I mean, I would also be happy with the idea of letting it be lined and also letting it be used as snow storage. But I think to get back to the point though, the overall analysis of the parking capacity for the use did did contemplate that. So we would not want to remove spaces and >> go against the changes that have been made and kind of reviewed. >> Yeah. I think um I think that the question is really just about the four trees, you know, that we're back to. I think that >> right >> that in in any kind of winter when we have a snowstorm like we just had >> you're going to take up parking spaces for for some snow at least temporarily happened at my building you know so because where do you go with this stuff right until you can remove it >> so um but but the question at hand I think is the four trees um Scott you had made a point that a very early slide said that along the front 29 trees were needed But I think 46 were planted or something like that.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
ASL is a language. Listening to spoken language is an approach to learning language and literacy. It's not a language. It is a method of teaching children how to listen and speak if they have the auditory capabilities and the um support to do so. But it's not a language. It's an approach to learning. >> So you would call it maybe a tool. >> Yes. >> Or a mechanism. >> Perfect. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. So then they can't really be fully compared. ASL is a language. Listening and spoken in language is a an approach to language. So for birth to five that language acquisition piece is very important. Um a person has to be qualified to provide all the whole suite of services including speech all etc. So a a provider needs to be qualified. Here we need to make clear that ASL is a language that they would be acquiring and then English is a language that they would be acquiring through reading and writing.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
So um uh I shared with you last month uh our um our enrollment history. So I will remind you that uh in the last five years we have lost 19% of our enrollment. And our projections for the beginning of the school year in July is a reduction of another 5.2%. So as I said for the last five years and including the current year we were able to reduce positions without talking about specific people because we could we could u um uh eliminate positions through attrition. That's not the case this year. Now, I will tell you of the 22 positions that I'm recommending that we eliminate um eight of them uh are vacant right now. Okay. Eight of them. So, in terms of actual people that we uh that we talk to and and and care about and you know are part of our school district family, um that's 13 13 people.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Am I making those numbers up? >> No, that sounds right. >> It's in the ballpark. I'm not sure exactly. >> There was a slide, one of the first slides you showed this evening. I think show that. >> Right. And I think that's what the comment refers to about board approval is we we do have, I believe, over 200 new trees throughout the site, most of which are in the parking lot. So that's where your ability as a board to say maybe it's not appropriate to have one per eight in that section of the parking lot because they're not viable or there's already the tree line that exists, you know, to the west heading towards the the path. Um, so I think that's why GCG mentioned that would need board approval if deemed appropriate because there's enough trees throughout the site. >> I think this is a question where I would love Becca, if she was still on, to weigh in.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
So they're still acquiring English rather than all of the the confusion and and the way people are talking about modalities etc. It tends to the the message tends to get lost to the public and to legislators how to explain that very critical difference. And to me it's really important to have that birth to five window um be focused on language language acquisition to be kindergarten ready. It of course speech services we want we the agency offers that we have experts who definitely do support that. So that's what I have to say about that. Um I feel like I needed to stand up for that. And uh if if I may jump in, board member Boove, um that is actually another concern that we have is it talks about qualified providers, but it doesn't define what a qualified provider is. So here at ASDB, we have certificated providers, but um there is no actual legal definition in this language of what constitutes qualified for the people who would be um applying for these grants.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um 21 21 8 whatever it's 13 uh in the last oh 22 okay in the last uh since yesterday morning I have met with all 13 of those people uh to let them know that this was a proposal I was bringing to the board um they're family and I felt it was important that they hear about it from me directly um not through an email not seeing it on the board agenda or seeing it in the board minutes tomorrow um that they know that they know that they have done nothing wrong. They are employees that we want to keep but they are they're in a pos they are in positions um uh that um frankly if we put it bluntly that we cannot afford to keep next year. Okay. Um so uh to give you a little bit of the rationale for these uh keep in mind that um that enrollment drop and we are looking at two of our elementary schools being um uh considerably lower in enrollment than the sites um can uh can have.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Do trees in these little islands where there already have two of them in that parking lot, you know, do they survive okay there? I mean, there's obviously see a whole line right across the parking lot of >> of trees in this little median. Um, and how well do they >> do? But the point is to break up the concrete heat island effect, but I I don't have the knowledge to kind of comment on that. I I I'm not 100% sure we need to remove those >> to remove what >> I mean what's the concern with the four trees exactly >> that we would be adding they're missing four trees from that parking lot so should they be put they should we they be put in should we lose a couple parking spaces or plant a few trees in that around that parking area um >> I mean the >> how many parking spaces are we going to lose >> area yeah area that he showed as or whoever kind of zoomed in uh where you were proposing snow storage.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
And in followup to Linda, what what you had to say, you couldn't have explained it better. This this bill, what it's doing is asking um to support a method against another one. Not against because they are saying to refer to both. So I don't want to misspeak. But it makes it really muddy. I I I think it there could be the perception of a preference for one method over a over another for lack of a better term. So um and I and I think that we here at ASDB feel that it is very important to make sure that we are supporting the parent and supporting the whole child and making sure that the parents have um all of the information rather than um trying to steer parents towards one option or the other. >> Not that that would happen. Not, >> but it's a concern.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Um, and frankly in at the end of August, this coming August, when we look at our enrollment numbers at our various sites, we may we may have to start thinking about closing a school the following year. I don't want it to be there. None of us want it to be there. It's been there in the past in our district. Um, some of you were around when we closed Mountain View. um and um uh were around when uh we closed Coyote and repurposed it um because of these kinds of enrollment drops. Okay. So um uh the logic part of the logic um uh for some of these recommendations has to do uh with what we are required to teach. So, uh, those of you who've known me a long time know that I'm a a biblopile. I read all the time. I I love books and I love reading.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Yeah. Right where your cursor is. That's an area where you can just add four more trees and call it a day and then you leave your flexibility of 26 parking spots or snow storage. But is there anything that would prevent you from adding just four trees there and just I think the snow storage kills the trees if you're going to actually snow. >> Well, you're going to use the parking spots as 26 parking spots for snow storage. So, it's not really not pushing it in that corner. Now, realistically, nobody's going to you're going to need those parking spots to actually store snow. That area that was highlighted is not going to be sufficient for the kind of snow that we got recently. It's a good example. Well, even >> yeah, but I can't that I mean those are like emergency situations and that's not how the document can >> Well, even like six inches of snow would overwhelm that that section.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
>> It's a concern. >> Not and for what it's worth, I agree with Maria on the filing neutral. Um, but with concerns, I think that's the overall best for the whole agency, too. And this is board member boat. Oh, are you done? >> Um, I was just I want looked like Mike had Okay, my turn. So, you're saying file is neutral. What's the plan because of the things do you is there something you want to add to the bill? Um concerns adding to the record? um things you're going to include not just from ASDB but from the community. What is kind of your plan if we file as neutral then what happens from there? Just if I could hear a little bit more about that. >> Thank you. Um that's a great question. So when you're filing neutral that would give us the ability to put our concerns on the record um in the uh request to speak system.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
The thought of not having librarians uh is offensive to me. However, there are state standards for music, art, and PE, and they must be taught. So if we do not have specialists teaching those things, then the classroom teacher would have to teach those, would have to add that to their daily uh roundup of things. Um that's asking a whole extra lot of of classroom teachers to be doing that. There are not state standards for librarians or for libraries. That doesn't mean we don't want those facilities, but in terms of having certified people in those positions. Um, uh, it makes it a little harder to justify that. at two of our sites, uh, middle school and junior high, they have not had librarians for several years, but they had in place of those CTE positions, so technology or um or yearbook um or student count, not student council, sorry, creative writing, uh, health and nutrition, um, um, culinary u things that are CTE kinds of things.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
I'm just I I I'm saying I don't think we need to enforce the four trees. That's my recommendation is not to enforce the four extra trees, >> but that's just my >> is not to what? enforce the four extra trees because I think that they've added there's more trees in all the other areas of the of the parking lot above and beyond what they required. >> How about we park this? And I don't know I know um you had a concern about how many trees were coming down and how many trees were kind of put back. So, uh, I don't know if that if we took that to the finish line. Maybe we kind of have that conversation at that point and figure out if these three needs are added or not. >> So, it sounds like we're concerned about the four because they might we might lose a couple of parking spaces.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
We could do it in writing. We could also testify at committee hearings to say, "Hey, the these are some of the things that we think you should be considering with this bill." Um, it would also allow us to go ahead and meet one-on-one with people in the it who are members of the committee to say, "Here's some things that we think that you need to think about before the bill is heard." And of course, uh, that would not stop members of the ASDB community from going out and advocating for or against, um, the bill. But what I'm saying is is that ASDB as an agency is saying we're we're staying neutral, but this is what you legislators need to know about. These are things that you need to be thinking about. And then hopefully um the bill will get amended to address some of these concerns that we have.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
And so essentially those sites traded a a librarian position for a CTE position. Okay. So to me those are all in the same category. And there are not CTE standards uh in Arizona that are required to be taught. There are CTE standards that are expected to be taught integrated into math, science, social studies, language arts. Okay. You hear the difference between required and expected. All right. So to me and to the to the other professionals who worked with me on this, the library CTE positions were kind of a cluster of positions. We already uh we already fund all of our art and all of our music positions through classroom site fund. So, it put us in a position then of thinking about moving some of our uh some of our PE positions over to classroom site fund. Um, but that's a lot of positions. And if we were to move we could move some of them or we you know if we moved all of them I'm sorry it would take up the entire uh classroom site fund budget and that's not the intention of classroom site fund.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
How many are we losing? Are we talking about like six? Are we >> Can I clarify? >> Yeah, I'm getting >> I think I don't think it's talking about losing spaces. I think that there's a a tree recommendation that you would put x number of trees per x number of spots because we were asked to create these spots. We theoretically with that calculation of whatever one to eight or whatever it is, we would be required to add four more trees to the parking lot. And I think the point is that they don't really fit. We're okay with adding four trees or actually being given that relief given that we've we're planting 46 where we only need 29. But I don't think we're talking about losing spaces. >> Okay. So what if what if we move those four somewhere else? >> That's kind of defies the intent of it though.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
>> Uh do you want to go ahead Mike >> Maria? Is there um is there funding allocated with this with the grants? I mean the providers are kind of loosely uh defined or mentioned but most of these bills have something attached. >> So there is no fiscal note attached to this bill. Uh what I would presume is going to happen is that Whip Willoughby will advocate in her budget ask for funding for this grant program. Now whether she is going to request it as one-time funding or as ongoing funding I do not know. Um because if it's just one-time funding then we're back here again having the same discussion next year. So we we will see >> and it would be offered through RFP processing. >> Uh it would be uh so dees would have to go out to RFP and then people would have to um apply.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Classroom site fund is intended to uh most of it is intended to supplement teachers um pay and to be performance pay. And the original conditions for classroom site fund were 20% of classroom site fund was uh was to be used for um base um addition to base salary. 40% was intended to be for performance pay and or at least 40% and up to 40% could be used for administrative decisions for maintenance and operations. Okay? Meaning class class size reduction or paying for those special positions. Two years ago, the legislature took away those requirements for 20 4040, but our teachers and our classroom site fund uh uh committee um built the plan and I u u asked this year that actually we put two more positions in there. Um but I still tried to keep that original intent of it being 40% or less for the decision parts that I could make.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
>> So the intent was to to kind of redistribute the trees inside the parking lot. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> It's just to reduce the heat outlets. >> I understand. And the reason that there's relief being sought is I'm still perplexed. Is the relief being sought because we need space to store snow or is the relief being sought because we need a few more parking spots. I I'm still not really understanding why the relief is being requested. I >> I would say the latter because we were advised to make those full-time parking spaces. that triggered the need for the four additional trees which weren't reflected on the plan. And because of the snow storage, the pavement, and then obviously the wooded forest area directly to the left already, there really isn't a prime place to plant those. Um, I think Carrie's mentioning we're okay adding four trees on the site or we would certainly accept the board's approval that in this case, we've already added over 200 trees.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above