Okay, the next item on the agenda is called to the public, and we invite anybody that would like to address the board at this time. You'd like to keep your comments to approximately three minutes. There is a form at the back of the meeting we need you to fill out so we know who you are. If you'll hand that to Mary Ford, then we know who you are so we can log that into the record. But we would love to hear. Keep your comments to about 3 minutes and hopefully you can keep them so they're not personal towards anybody. If if they are, then we'll have to ask you to be quiet. But we can't we can't discuss anything that's discussed tonight other than uh if it's on the agenda, we can normally what we can do is is uh direct the staff to look into that so that we can have a report maybe in the next meeting.
Um I think in several occasions, maybe several year you're probably a part of it was not only speaking with HRDC, but in general about I don't know. I I I I think it's it's odd too to me to see a little less than what what I remember it being, but um obviously, those those types of campaigns or efforts, especially like from our intermediate campus, who um really tap into and engage with the students' need for uh not only education, but something to call like their own or fun or whatever you want to call it. I mean, it it we call it fun, but it's more or less making that environment welcoming, supportive. Um it's not perfect, but I think it's important to say that those are the types of things I think we need to continue to press for at all of our campuses to make it so that this district can start to be it's appealing.
Uh but yeah, we'd welcome anybody to come up and take the take the mic and stand there and address the board at this time. >> All right. Good evening. My name >> comment card. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Sorry. I guess I'm really not >> I was gonna hand it to you afterwards, but I won't run away. >> All right. Uh so good. Good evening. My name is Sada Chadnoff. I am a parent of two Blige elementary students. I volunteer at the elementary school and also at the junior high. Tonight, I'm here to address or touch on what I perceive as some of the biggest challenges that our school district is currently facing, which includes financial hardship, which I believe we're going to beat to death in next week's um uh meeting on the bond and override. uh declining enrollment, lack of family caregiver and community participation and/or attendance at board meetings, and what appears to be a mass exodus of teachers at the elementary school.
I think we can say all we can or want about our letter grades or whatever it may be, but I also want us to see us start to increase our graduation percentage as well. Those are challenges that I think we as a board can start to really look to to set overall for the district in the next three-year plan. So I think it'd be really good to have some discussion. So this is good to to see. Thank you Ms. So you can continue. I'm sorry. I'm done unless you had more questions. Uh Ms. DeLeon? Okay. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> All right. Let's go ahead and move on to our Governing Board and our school district principals' reports. Ms. Enriques Benson, please. >> [applause] >> Good evening President Wandea, Governing Board members, Superintendent DeLeon. I've submitted my report. I hope you've had an opportunity to read it.
Touching first on declining enrollment, uh Courtney hit on it, we were 17% uh declining enrollment in five years between fiscal year 21 and 25. Part of that is due to our birth rates in the state. We are um in between let's see 2000 or 1990 and 2022 we went from 82.1 births per thousand women to 55 per thousand in our state. So because of our declining birth rates, open enrollment at other schools in the region, increase in charter schools, private schools, micro schools, and the availability of the ESA, we will continue to see a declining enrollment unless we become creative. But before we jump into that, there's many things that we need to address to write the ship. We have new leadership at our district and all three schools. This is an opportunity to walk away from the previous administration's reputation and showcase what is being done differently to improve our school and what are we doing to have a strong family and community involvement and provide a great K through2 education.
We did get our attendance back up this month. It is at 90%. So now it's just allergy season. So hopefully they send the kids to school. Ms. Blanco is one of our newer international teachers. She did a cross-cultural activity with her students with her kindergarten class and then Ms. Jose supported that. They shared and taught nursery rhymes in the Optum language and then in return the students in the Philippines taught our class a nursery rhyme in their I can't say their Cebuano dialect. So you'll see that in our highlights video as well. So it was really nice to see the kids have a virtual type of interaction. Did I miss Mr. Diaz? I'm looking at my cheat sheet. I know you always have notes. Just to share cuz I saw it in your upcoming events this year, third grade testing incentive. Um was a huge like it really and I know as far as speaking from my family's perspective is they the the boys that were really wanting to be at school and you know, sickness or whatever comes into play, but they were like, "I want to go to school.
Some things that I believe could help would be moving the start time from the board meeting from 5 to 5:30 or 6, which is much easier on working families. Personally for me, my husband works for the Forest Service. At 3:30, I was scrambling to find kid coverage because fire season is here. This is going to be the next few months for me and I know for many other families. Um, I like to give credit where credit is due. I think the school is doing a great job publicizing the work group for ne or the working group for next week for the bond and the override. I do wish we could start it at 5:30 or 6 to get critical public involvement, but at least we have ample time to prep for that. Um, one other thing that I think would be helpful is getting that agenda out as quickly as possible.
I want to go to Main Event." So, I really appreciate that you're that you're you're your campus is putting together those types of things cuz it I mean they were excited and they wanted to be there every day and and to participate. >> just in third grade alone for the testing weeks, we had 95% attendance. So, it it did work. >> [laughter] >> Truly. We even had a parent call and say her child is sick, but she doesn't care. She still wants to come and take her test. She wants to come sick. So, we did separate her into a different room so she could take her time and focus on her test. When she was done, we did say she can go home. She said, "No, I'm staying all day cuz I want to go to Main Event." >> [laughter] >> Aw. I'll see. I do have a shout-out again to in an effort to celebrate or in the spirit a spirit to celebrate extraordinary work.
It can be a draft agenda, but as I sit here and decide where I'm going to spend my evenings, how much am I going to pay a babysitter, and what I need to do to be present and to get these comments ready, I would like to have a chance to review that with plenty of time. Um, the mass exodus that was touched on today when y'all looked at the agenda and saw how many elementary teachers are either retiring or resigning. Uh, on the agenda, there's six. If you look back at the March agenda, there was an additional three. And in the February agenda, there is an additional two teachers. So, we're up to 11 teachers from the elementary school. We have 29 teachers. We're looking at a third of our elementary staff leaving. This is quite concerning. As a parent, I strongly believe that the core of our school are teachers.
I want to highlight second grade math in second grade ELA. I want you to see the amount of red that has been reduced over time. Um but also the amount of blue. We continue to work in in in increasing the proficiency of our students. But second grade is one of the grade levels that has been consistently reducing the the red but also increasing the yellow, the green, and the blue. So, a big shout-out to the team, the parents, and the students. And your tax credit. >> [snorts] >> Primary campus, tax credit. All right. Um so far our tax credit funds update, we currently have $63,276.65. Um we do have a portion that is considered designated. Um so we did utilize some of that and are still purchasing. Um but we did get third grade testing snacks. We have first grade chapter books. Um pre-K is going to take a field trip to Lava Island.
They are here every day to educate and counsel our children. They likely spend more time with our children than we do. We have wonderful teachers. They go above and beyond for our kids. They dig into their pockets to ensure classrooms are fully funded. And beyond the classroom, they spend many hours prepping, grading, and planning. We need to ensure that they are happy here. I believe we can accomplish that by having competitive pay. We reviewed that tonight. that allows for our teacher to live and thrive in a high cost of living area. We can administer anonymous church teacher surveys. We all know this will lead to better survey. Currently the surveys are being collected and funneled up to one person. And unfortunately for many that's not anonymous. That is one person who might just tell one other person who tells one other person. We're not going to understand what is going on until we have true anonymity in that um program.
It's like a trampoline sensory. Um our ESS students are also attending with them. And then um our kinder end of year step up decorations and um treats that they do. Um we will use our undesignated funds for end of year field day items, scheduled field trips. Um the ESS that will cover their Lava Island. Students have been going to Desert Museum, Children's Mu- Museum. Um and they're trying to go to the Flandrau Planetarium, but it books up pretty quick. Um we do want to replenish our playground equipment, um our third grade promotion celebration snacks and decor, incentives for our PBIS Dallas store. This year we are doing um virtual bucks. So everything is on Synergy. The students get to kind of go online shopping. Um so they really enjoy that. So they get points obviously for positive behaviors. Um and then we're looking to purchase literacy blending boards to support our kinder and first grade students with their phonemic awareness.
My understanding are teacher contracts were due last week. Are there other elementary teachers that are leaving that were not on tonight's agenda? How about resignations and retirements at the junior high and high school? What is the plan to replace these teachers? We were also informed at one of the superintendent advisory council meetings that there have been another five positions that were cut. What are these positions and what are the implications? What will we be facing next year? We need to make sure our teachers are happy and supported. This kind of turnover is unsustainable and the perception is not great. Um I went back I'm a scientist so I like to nerd out on data. I went back and looked at February, March, April agendas to see what type of teacher resignation and retirement we had in 2025. It was five for the K through 12.
Awesome. Thank you so much for for putting that together. Looks promising. Appreciate it. And as you continue to see all the other ones present more day, this present this part of the presentation for each one of the schools will fulfill the board request 2526-002. Yes, thank you. And Aaron, take it away. Thank you. Here we go. Laughter dominates. Good time. Mark. Mark two. >> [music] >> And the circle. Circle. Five more rounds. Switch. Mark. Three more minutes to go. Milly. Milly. Milly. As soon as Milly and Milly Milly. As soon as Milly and Milly Milly. As soon as Milly and Milly Milly. You beat your record. That's it. That's it. You only just look at it. You went one, two, three more lines. So, are you going to beat your record? And let's go back. Let's go back. All right. Ready, set, start. Let me make me happy.
Our K through 12 as of right now is at 14. One way I think we can include and build our reputation, work with the community is the inclusion of ESA families. These are children are that are educated, are still part of our community. In October of 2024, in a bid to get ESA families to return to the school, the superintendent decided that ESA families could no longer participate in extracurricular unless they enrolled full-time or did not take an ESA. What has happened since then is that another students have left our school district. At this time, we should look at serving our community children who are being educated with ESA dollars. Many public schools including PACON, Heber Overgard, Yuma, and Mesa have all figured out a way to accommodate and accept ESA funds for extracurricular. And in fact, Mesa has taken this a step further with the Eagle Ridge Enrichment program.
Rock the test. Do your best. Rock the test. Do your best. ROCK THE TEST. DO YOUR BEST. ROCK THE TEST. >> [applause] >> THANK YOU, MS. ENRIQUES. Thank you to your team and everyone. I think that's always super excited to see what y'all are doing over there. Appreciate it so much. Board members, anything last for primary campus? Appreciate it so much. Ms. Abigail Lewis. >> [applause] >> Good evening, President Williams, Superintendent Diaz, and everyone that's still here and am and online. Um unfortunately, our attendance went down uh last month, but um thank you to our new parent liaison, Juan Diaz Romo, who helped increase our attendance to 86% by calling um many, many of our students and our parents to make sure that they get here um to school. Um so, he's done a very good job of creating a system for us for our uh attendance.
Starting in the fall semester, Xolo will also start accepting ESA for extracurricular activities. All of these public schools have figured out a way to do so, and I think we need to follow in suit. bring these families and students back into somewhat of our orbit. And who knows, maybe a kid that's participating in an extracurricular will really like it and will reenroll in Blige. Thank you for your time tonight. >> Thank you for your thoughts. Um, next. >> Hi, I apologize for being rushed. I have a baseball game that I'm pretty late for. Um, my name is Elaine Smithson and uh, I've worked at the elementary library for four years. I run the backpack snow backpack snacks program which provides uh, bags of food for kids. um over the weekend when they don't have breakfast and lunch at school. We feed about 170 kids between Blue Ridge and Xolo.
And then, uh we are almost done with our um 21st century um intervention program that we have. Thank you to Dr. Flores for putting that together and organizing all the the sessions that we have, and then we will be starting a summer school program in the summer. And um and if anybody's listening, make sure that they tell Better Beans thank you for um creating a partnership with them. Um they created a juice called Courage Courage Juice for um Isibindi, the House of Courage. And so it was a special drink just for the class that won for the attendance challenge for Isibindi month. And you can show the video. Uh credit tax credit. Oh, um we have about 16,800 um but uh I did leave some notes for each of the categories of the tax credit. So if you have questions but majority of it is for snacks for the ASA test, which costs quite a bit to um purchase for the whole school for each day of the test.
I have five kids and our oldest Gracie graduated last year. She attended Blue Ridge from um grades K through 12 and graduated and was the recipient of the Flynn scholarship which is the most prestigious um Arizona scholarship. I'd like to speak in favor of uh as uh Miss Chadnoff mentioned a pay-to-play uh model for homeschool students. I am a firm supporter of public schools. That's why I work so hard to um be involved. Um in a small community like ours, extracurricular programs are not just optional activities. They are the lifeblood of school culture and student connection. Allowing ESA and homeschool students to participate through a reasonable pay-to-play model strengthens these programs um and our programs by increasing numbers, competitiveness, and sustainability. More participants means more viable teams. I saw this with Gracie as she went through her school experience. During the years in high school, she participated in um choir and our amazing theater program.
And so we try not to touch um our tax credit money as much only so that we could have that money available for testing days. Thank you. Thank you for the um memo. Any other questions? Go ahead. You can do the video. We can do that after. Okay. >> Okay. Uh questions for intermediate campus. Comments. Mr. Diaz. President Monday, members of the board, and members of the community, I think it's also important to highlight. I want you to please take a look at sixth grade math and sixth grade ELA. I want you to see the amount of red for third quarter. I want you to see the amount of um blue, green, and yellow. Um Mr. Dalton and and and Bobby Killebrew High School, you're going to get a very strong seventh grade. So, uh be ready um because that's coming your way. So, it it we need to step it up a notch um because they're coming and we coming they're coming with force.