I just want to call out Don who has been in buildings lately and who has been on the ground doing the facility work to the point where she was at Pine Hill School when one of the water um pipes broke and guess who was doing the mopping and the or Denny do walkthroughs. I'm like exactly sure. >> Yeah. And then I went and did a lunch duty. >> Oh. >> Yeah. So I was actually really sweaty and I don't really like sweat. >> So we all do walkroughs. Speaking of teaching and learning walkthroughs, um most recently I was in the um I was at Chering and I got to go through second grade and third grade classes and it was neat uh because in some cases they were both doing math where they were both doing literacy and I got to see how they built on each other.
Um, have you, gentlemen, received any questions via email that you'd like to tackle about the second batch of warrants? >> No, not for the warrants. Um, just to add thing to the stoves, not to burn that down, but those stoves had been originals since the building and their control panels were going and it controlled the electronics would have cost $900 for the B. I'll say my not professional wording but circuit board panel something like that electronic panel. >> So in the end getting a new one for about 1,100ish made sense. >> Spending slightly more money for something that will last longer something more energy efficient and with the convection and induction something that will allow the kids to cook faster >> within the time frame of the per class period. So >> yeah. >> Okay. Um, if there are no other questions, I'd like to kick it back to public comment just in case our public has anything they'd like to add before we look into adjourning.
So I'm glad to see that that's rising and getting up close to 90%. Do you know data-wise, have you tracked are the preschool students performing above the students who don't attend preschool? Do you know anything about that? >> I am so glad that you asked that, Sheena. Um we actually are beginning to track that and so through our Tableau um system, um we're taking a look especially because of Fast Bridge, it's that beginning of the year assessment when we're looking at letter naming and initial sounds. Um I am proud to say that we're tracking um to know whether students have attended a GPS preschool, whether they have attended preschool at all, or whether they have attended no preschool. And with all of our programs, we're outperforming. Um the data is showing that um that our students are naming the letters, they're prepared for kindergarten. The teachers are noticing that by the data of whether they've um attended a GPS preschool or another preschool or have not attended at all.
You know, I got to see how second graders were working on topic sentences and then I went to third grade and they were working on like the next level. I was like, "Oh, this is so great to see the progression." Um, and in math too, looking at uh their new ways of doing math and how they subtract three-digit numbers from each other. And I was like, isn't this just easier if you do it this way? But I kept my mouth shut. Working on that math number sense. I get it. Um, so our kids are doing amazing things things. Um, as you know, MCATs are well underway. The 10th grade of English tomorrow. Um, I want to thank um the cast and crew of the Prince of Egypt um for their amazing performance, awesome songs, incredible dancing, just so fun to watch. Um our physics Olympiad team at the high school um is led by uh Dr.
Okay, I am hearing and seeing nothing. So, I would look for a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Okay, we have a motion from member Goodwin. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Okay, here comes the vote. Member Goodwin, >> yes. Member Webb, >> yes. >> And I am a yes. We are adjourned at 12:35 p.m. >> Thank you. >> Good job, team. Thanks for making it and I hope you feel better soon.
And so the data is looking very favorably in all of the areas in any one of our four preschool program options. >> That's great. I definitely encourage you guys to keep tracking that and um at some point I'd love to see the numbers on it cuz I'm a huge early ed- education person, K3. I know how important that foundation is. So the early on the earlier on you can track that and nail those kids and make sure you're you're helping fill those gaps the better. So >> Great. So you and I are going to plan a meeting in maybe August and so that way I can share with you the numbers from all of the work that we've done this year when we get that beginning of the year data, I would love to share that with you. >> Love doing data dives. That sounds great.
Josh Bridger. Um and he said that the teams won collectively five individual event trophies at the physical physics Olympiads um this past weekend as well as the overall championship trophy. They competed with maturity, intelligence, humor, and poise. So congratulations to our kids. They continue to make us look good. Um the MAC trial team, for those of you who don't know, went to the state finals in Boston and competed against Newton South. Unfortunately, they didn't win. Um but that was an incredible feat for our for our students. Um and especially for Tom Bourke, who is a esteemed um history teacher who has been leading the mock trial team for years and is um retiring at the end of this year. So, what a nice thing to say that they made it to the the state finals. Um, and our DECA team, which focuses on business, um, had their, um, state competition in Boston a couple weekends ago, and now we have eight of our DS kids going to the nationals, um, in Atlanta in April.
Thanks. >> Thanks. Anyone else? >> Thank you so much for your presentation. I've got a couple of comments. I love the partnerships with organizations like First Thing Fir- First Things First and and Love and Logic. My wife and I have actually taken the Love and Logic courses. Game changer for parents. And so I'm excited to to know that that we're helping parents who are exposing parents um to to that. The other question I guess the question I have is there is a percentage of our students that want to go into early education as a career. Are there opportunities for our high school students to get involved with maybe either on a volunteer basis um or an assignment basis, maybe for some credit uh to get involved with the preschool programming and has anything been done yet and is or is that something that we could look into?
So, our kids shine in the classroom and they shine out of the classroom, they shine in the field, as you know. So, just so proud to be working in a district where our students shine. I also want to mention that um, our teachers shine as well. I'll be sending you a memo. So as you know um we belong to two collaboratives. The tech collaborative in Walpool and the accept collaborative in NIT where some of our students with um special needs go to to be with stu uh other students like themselves. The tech collaborative decided to start the first annual tech celebrates teaching um opportunity for all 19 districts to name teachers who shine in a variety of areas. Um and so we submit the names and we get a little program and we have a little celebration. Um so we there are five categories. It's how the magic happens.
>> Mr. Thompson, I am so glad that you asked about that. Um first of all, our Toy Box preschool program, that's CTE. So that career and technical, we have that opportunity for our high school students to be able to learn what it's like with child development and be able to lesson plan to actually go into the Toy Box classroom and they're actually delivering lessons that they've written that are aligned with the Arizona early learning standards um under the direction of our CTE um directors or the um teacher in that CTE program. So it's really exciting with that. Then many of them are falling in love with it and then they're have the opportunity to become student workers in Toy Box, especially their junior and senior year. Then um many of them are reaching out to me this time of the year and saying um the directors and saying, "Hey, can you help our student workers to get a job for the summer working through our VIK before and after school program through our summer camp opportunities, um, which is a great way, um, for them to begin putting their skills to practice in another area and not maybe just with preschoolers, but perhaps with, um, elementary age students.
Um a deep knowledge of um and commitment to learning through teaching and leadership. Everybody is welcome here. Building that um sense of belonging in the classroom. Let's see what happens if as Gretchen was saying like let's try this and if it goes well great and if it fails let's learn from it. Um brick by brick is just making sure that um students are really um building those fundamental skills and teachers are really looking at data to make sure that everybody's making progress. and then miles along the way. People who continue to evolve even as veteran teachers and give back to the newer teachers so that they can evolve too. Um so each of the four schools nominated five educators. Um so I will share their names with you in a memo once I share them with the rest of the district. Um and Denny and I got to select two of them to take to the tech teaching breakfast uh where we celebrated with the other 18 districts.
Um, we also work, um, collaboratively with the, um, Chandler, um, with Paradise Valley Community College, um, because now that they've become, let's say, a student worker in our programs, um, such as through the VIK before and after school program or student worker at the high school, they're going to have a registry number. And guess what? We're working to develop a pipeline, um, and we're really trying to work on ironing it out so they can see what that path might be where we can help them to get their college paid for, um, through some grant funding, um, that Paradise Valley Community College has, Chandler Gilbert Community College has, um, in order to to get their CDA and eventually perhaps maybe even their bachelor's and become a teacher. Um, and then there's other opportunities once they graduate from high school. Perhaps many of them are coming back and working in our Building Blocks Preschool program or Advantage Preschool program or even in K Prep as a child educator assistant or a para, um, para specialist.
Um and it was super powerful. So so much to celebrate in this district. And the whole idea here too is that um at least at the breakfast uh educators from different schools got to interact with each other. So if there is something interesting that they're doing, they now have contact information to share those ideas. So little bit of highlights there. Um a highlight in some ways um budget is now at the town level. So many thanks to you and and to Don for leading us through the school committee based process. um they are now through um town hearings and they will go to um town meetings and then to a vote. So fingers crossed that we'll be able to open the doors um with all of our amazing resources in August. Um negotiations, we now have a number of tenative agreements thanks to our negotiation team.
So, we're really excited about those opportunities because now they're getting paid, they're getting some experience in that classroom while they're also taking classes and again having that registry number. We've had a number, gosh, Erica can give you data where, um, those teachers that are in our Building Blocks eventually they've got that skill set and eventually they may become a teacher in one of our Building Blocks classrooms and eventually becoming certified and becoming K Prep or even, um, in our Advantage Preschool program. So, we're really trying to work on strengthening and developing that pipeline for families and students. >> Thank you very much. Is there anything else from the board? All right. Thank you so much for that presentation. It was very enlightening and enjoyable and thank you for all the hard work you guys do. >> to emails from all of you with calendars and you know, syncing our calendars up with any one of us.
So I believe that we'll be having an executive session after this meeting or the end of this meeting to share details of that. But many thanks um to Mary and to Jeff and to Mega and to Becca and to um Jesse. Thank you. And Kate um for serving on that committee. More to come on that. Um and lastly, we actually finalized our first hire for next year already today on March 31st, which might be a record. Great. >> Um so we did the interview, we did the sample lesson, we provided the offer, they signed it, and done deal as of today. So, we're already planning for next year. So, the budget is is ready to go and now are hiring um and we'll have a full roster of educators for next year. Um that said, >> um for those of you who are fifth grade parents or middle school parents, you know that we have um named Jen Santiso, our middle school assistant principal, to be principal for middle school next year.
Seriously, we would love to have you and take you out to see our preschool programming. Thank you again. >> All right, we're going to move on to 7.02, my favorite part of the agenda. Our monthly financial report for month ended February 28th, 2026 fiscal year 2026. Dr. McCord. >> It it is that special time of the evening when the numbers get crunched. We'll turn it over to Ms. Bonnie Betts. >> What's uh Holy cow. Hold on. I don't know what happened. Can I have some technology >> an article about you, Ms. Betts. >> technology help here? Cuz it's It's not showing what's on my screen. >> Just throw it against the wall. >> What the heck? I guess I had to It's I turned it off. It's Yeah, at least it's education. What happened? It's always me. A little bit of excitement in the evening.
Um which is fantastic. She's coming to an upcoming meeting. Um she'll get to meet you all um and say hello and talk about changes to the handbook for next year and the program of studies. um that opens up a middle school principal slot as she's moving to the principal role. So Denny's in the process. He met with his committee today. They've chosen six people to interview. >> vice principal. Thank you. Um assistant principal. Um and so that's underway and we are so excited. Um I haven't had this much joy in a long time. Well, I have more joy in the classroom, but my second um um ground of joy has been looking at the resumes and cover letters for the applicants for our curriculum coordinator position. We have such amazing talented people applying for this. Denny are like, "My goodness, like are they gonna take over our jobs?" They might.
Just to keep you guys all awake now. Do what happened? You got There it is. All right. Uh please excuse the delay. Good evening, governing board members, President Thompson, Dr. McCord. This uh presentation is very quick. It just represents the activity to date through March um through February 28th, sorry, 2026. Um so, I'll I'll go through the the presentation. Um As always, we always share the district operating funds. We did want to share a little bit about the state grant funds. Talk a little bit about our enterprise funds and a couple of the other district funds. So, maintenance operations, you can see that the available balance now has grown from last month by about $3 million. This is reflective of the time frame that we're in. We're reducing spending the the final uh deadline for maintenance operations spend is um April 10th. And uh so, the unencumbrance of open POs is leading to that $16.6 million uh amount.
Um, but it's so exciting. And I have um our first meeting tomorrow afternoon with our screening committee to look at um there was like 27 applicants. >> 29. Um and decide who to bring in for interviews and then who to bring in for a finalist. Um okay. >> Um a day where we will have them do classroom walkthroughs with us. We're going to have do some performance tasks of looking at data, doing some coaching. Um, and of course meet with all of our instructional leaders. So, so excited about that. In fact, I think we'll probably be back, you know, if everything goes well next year to say we definitely want a second one. Um, I wish we could take two out of this pool, but we'll start with one. >> So, thank you for that opportunity. >> That's great. >> And I will add because superintendent is very humble.
And then in unrestricted capital outlay, the available available balance is 40 million if if you remember, we did budget to expend about 30 uh 32 million dollars. Uh you can see that we've only spent $23 million or encumbered $23 million to date. Uh we are expecting to see a few more purchase orders come in before the end of the school year. Um and then we'll just keep you up to date on that as well. Uh the state grants, just um a little uh information about instructional improvement. We use the instructional improvement fund across the school district both at our schools as well as our departments for primarily for professional development opportunities. So, a year ago about this time, we were anticipating an available balance of about $1.3 million in instructional improvement. And you can see our available balance that we're expecting at the end of this year is closer to 825,000.