I can tell you specifically if it came to my second child who insists on getting the all sports award every year. if he was having a hard time performing in school and I thought it was best for him to be homeschooled, but it came down to telling him you would not be able to be in those sports, he absolutely would choose sports over his own academic ability to keep up with with that part, which we know all comes first. Blige is an academics first school. I'm sure my son would say, "We're throwing academics out the window. I want to be where I can be playing sports." Um, I also want to bring up that oftentimes we kind of struggle to feel fill these positions of running these programs that make people attracted to Blige. I did not ask her permission, but my co-coach, the girls um, coach at the junior high level has, I believe this is her ninth year coaching.
That is for our pilot implementation or the first year implementation and then the remaining years will be 120 days. Similarly, our our summer school program provides funding for four teachers as well, a coordinator, and clerical support over four weeks. But to ensure equitable opportunities for our staff, we implemented a quarterly rotation model for after school programming instead of having the same four teachers serve throughout the year, this structure allows more teachers to participate, share their experiences, and contribute to the program. And it also promotes staff engagement and professional growth and also enhances the variety of enrichment opportunities that we could offer to our students as different teachers bring diverse skills and expertise to the program. So, our program requirements, we are operating under key requirements by the Arizona Department of Education, and it guides us on how to serve our students and make the program into a success.
She's only been paid the last two years. The seven years before that, she did it as a volunteer status. If we do not have these parents and and people who are willing to make these programs run, we simply won't have the programs. She chooses to homeschool. So essentially, if things don't change, someone who has donated 7 years of making a program run at Blige that's turning out incredible athletes, but we're saying that her children would not be allowed to participate after she went seven years unpaid. And again, sorry Tony, if I'm embarrassing you, I did not ask her permission. Um, but that's just astounding to me that in this community where we ask people, come out, let's make the school work, but also we would not benefit her own children. She's not rolling in the dough. She's not doing any of this for money. She's doing it all about community and is also a former Blueridge student.
So, again, the program must be evaluated, use funds to enhance, not replace services, to ensure safety and access, including meals and transportation, and remain free of charge to all the participants. So, these requirements ensure that the program remains focused on academic achievement, student development, and strong family partnership. So, this is our program snapshot. So, currently, we are uh we serve 133 unduplicated students across grade 4 through 6. So, the daily structure includes a snack period, followed by academic support and enrichment activities. This is all facilitated by our team of tutors, psych coordinator sorry, psych coordinator and clerical support staff. So, the program is designed to operate for a total of 104 days, and I'm so very happy to say that this Thursday, April um 16th, that will be our last um session. And we um have reached 35 regular attendees towards our target of 56.
So I would ask from my perspective as a parent of four Blue Ridge students, a coach as well as a community member that is dedicated to making Pinetop still be the place to live. I would ask that you would consider having ESA students be allowed to financially contribute to our program and to have these students so that our programs can be risen. Um, I don't know what all the motivations are for not allowing them, but if we ever worry that Blige students would suffer by having more students involved, I just would like to say I strongly disagree. Um, just as an example, um, at the eighth grade level, my son was on the basketball team. If anyone's familiar with Jackson Reek, he's an incredible, incredible athlete. By far and away the best kid on that team. What if he was an ESA student? Would he be taken away from Blige students?
So, we anticipate meeting the remaining target through continued participation, including our upcoming um summer school program. So, um moving forward, again, um this is the student teacher ratio. So, in determining student teacher ratio for 21st CCLC program, we follow program guidance from the Arizona Department of Education. So, we account overall enrollment, student needs, and our goal of meeting the required number of regular attendees, which is 56, by the end of the program year. So, for academic programming, ratios are generally recommended at 10 to 15 for academic programs, for intermediate level, with smaller group sizes for tutoring sessions. For the upcoming summer school program, these recommended ratios remain consistent, so we will be expecting 10 to 15 students per class for our summer school classes. It is also important to note that student teacher ratio may vary depending on the type of activity. For example, enrichment activities such as sports may accommodate larger group sizes.
I absolutely disagree. Anyone that knows him would know it made the whole team rise. All of those kids were benefited by being on the same team with a kid, even if that kid is head and shoulders above everyone else's ability. So, most of these sports are going to be tryyous. You know, I think that that would still apply to all students. And if they're ones that are just everyone gets to participate, that is usually because we need the kids. So I don't see any cons in allowing ESA kids to financially contribute and to be part of our Blueridge teams. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Hi, my name is Stephanie Bergo. Um, I have a son in the eighth grade who attends Blige and I'm also here to um advocate for the ESA families being able to participate in extracurriculars. I feel like if we want the community to pass a bond to support Blige, then the community needs to feel like they're going to benefit from Blige.
While activities like cooking, coding, or robotics require smaller groups to ensure safety, engagement, and effective instruction. So again, our goal as a 21st CCLC site is to balance student access with quality instruction by maintaining appropriate group sizes. So moving forward, these are the programs that we offered for quarter one and two. We have social emotional learning. We're running it from August 25th to September 23rd, as well as the basketball. We have 27 students in social emotional learning. We have two teachers and the and the student teacher ratio is one teacher to 13 to 14 students. Basketball, we have 53 students. We have like a lot of sign-ups in that program. We have two teachers and our ratio is one teacher to 26 to 27 students. We offered him that class from October 6th to November 6th. Same thing with chess, homework help, and steam. We have 12 students for him dog.
And at this point, if we're asking the community to vote, and if I was a parent of a homeschooled child, I would not vote for a Blue Ridge Bond if it was not going to benefit my child. And if we want them to join board or join forces with us, then we need to do things that are going to support them, that they're going to want to come and participate with us. Um, I feel a little bit like Blige has declared war on the ESA families and they've drawn a line and they're like, you are not part of us and we need to correct that. We need to invite them in. And as has been stated, it will make Blidge stronger. I um have lived here about five years. In my previous state, I was a ballroom dance coach and half of my team was homeschool kids and I was a public school coach.
We have one teacher, that is 1:12. Chess is has 17 students, that is 1:17. Homework help has 40 students. We have two teachers and the ratio is one teacher to 20 students. Our steam class has 29 students. We have two teachers and the ratio is one teacher to 14 to 15 students. And then, moving forward, quarter three programs we offered arts from January 5th to March 19th. The same thing with volleyball, but volleyball has a lot of sign-ups, so we break it into two. January 5th to February 12th is the first session, and then February 17th to March 19th is the second session. We have 15 students for arts, and the teacher ratio is one teacher to 15 students. Volleyball session one is 27 students with two teachers, that is 1:13 to 14. Volleyball session two, we have 14 students and the ratio is one teacher to seven students.
Half the team was from homeschool and they made our team 100% better than it would have been without them. We could not have had the quality of of program that we had if we had not accepted those kids who were participating in the home school. So, as like has been stated, I request that you consider revising that policy and allowing ESA kids to participate in a pay-to-play situation. Thank you. >> Anybody else like to address the board? Thank you. Um, this is something, you know, and we can't have an open discussion about that, but I do believe it's something we need to put on the agenda and discuss. Actually, I even think we probably before we put it on the agenda, probably ought to have an open meeting. We uh we're kind of overwhelmed with this bond thing right now. So, I'm looking at uh July.
Youth development program that started January 5th to March 19th, we have six students and we have one teacher and the teacher ratio is one teacher to six students. And lastly, this is the last program that we run March 23rd to April 16th to complete our 104 days of implementation. We will be ending on the April 16. We have 32 students currently for reading and math tutoring and we have five teachers and our student ratio student teacher ratio is six to seven students. And then these are the academic programs that we offered so far. This is our pilot year and we're also learning. So but we offered this program to better serve the community and our students. So we have homework help for academic program. We have him dog. We have math and reading tutoring and we have steam. For enrichment programs, we offered basketball, volleyball, arts, drama, and chess.
July, we will have made the decision whether we're going to go to bond or not. Let's have an open public meeting so we can get both sides of this uh this argument so that there's there's somebody advocating for either side. Let's have an open meeting in July if you'll put that down for us. And uh also with the time change perhaps uh we can we can vote on that put it on the agenda also because that has to be something that's voted on by the board. If there's nothing else this is going going one more time gone. All right. So I need a motion to adjurnn this meeting. >> I have a motion for Margaret to adjurnn. I have a second from Sylvian. All in favor of adjournment say I. >> I. That looks to be unanimous also. All right. Our our next meeting will be May 12th at this location at five o'clock and uh we'll adjourn till then.
And for youth development program, we offered social emotional learning and youth development. And also to note that after school teachers were given options and opportunity to teach what they are good or they have expertise in so that we are having some like a lot of buying in from our teacher too and they love to teach that because that's their expertise and that is also aligned to our pre proposal and ADE recommended programs. And moving forward, these are some of the staff feedback. So I will not be reading all of that but I assure you that those are all good feedbacks. And then next to that one are our student feedbacks wherein if you can read the very top part in there, there is one student that says that our after school program really helped him because he missed like one half of the weeks and this after school program was able to help him catch up with the lessons that he missed.
Oh, also just information the 23rd next Thursday we are having an open meeting regarding the B bond. So we appreciate everybody that would come so we can have and and we can stay till midnight. I mean there's not going to be any time limit on that. That'll start at 5:00. We'll start at 5:00 and we'll be over when everybody's through talking. So, thank you. That's the 23rd at 5:00 in this location.
So Um, and then family events, it enables us to uh continually communicate with parents and give opportunities for parents to actively participate with their students' education. So, we met the goal, which is offering um activity for 22 families. We met that last year when we had this family night where in our student also cases every uh um activities that we had in there. We had drama or theater club for farm. We had basketball game with the families and uh arts showcasing their works with their parents and that was so very amazing that we're able to showcase and show the um the community what we had so far achieved. So, um so far those are the things that we have for 21st century. Again, I wanted to say thank you to my principal for the trust and confidence in me for being the site coordinator, to Ms.
Bernal for uh for the help and for our uh staffs in the intermediate campus for the transportation for making my uh work easy and for the parents and families and for the students for the trust to all of us. Thank you for the board as well. Um yes. President Bondia, um this also fulfills uh board request uh 2526-026. Um a special thank you again everyone that has been involved um in providing opportunities to our students and thank you for all of the teachers that are embracing additional work and and and responsibilities to create uh experiences for our students in the community. Thank you, President Bondia. Thank you, Dr. Flores. I have comments. >> [clears throat] >> Uh first of all, uh 100% appreciate the time, effort, and um consideration especially for putting together a request from the board. Um I know you noted that feedback on here is good, but I want to be very transparent and understanding that feedback isn't always good, and I think it's important to embrace those opportunities for growth.
You mentioned that it is the first year, a pilot year, which from to be very frank and honest, there were there were concerns and instances where I'm looking at the at the sizes of some of the some of the offerings and the teacher to student ratio. If you think about basketball and you have two two individuals, 53 students x times whatever per teacher. Um I don't know that that can be conducive to something where you're actually actively engaging each student. Now, again, on me to be to be present to actually observe and to see, but there were some there were some concerns about students not having any thing to do or waiting or having instances where they were standing around and not really feeling like they were being engaged to the point where um they don't want to go. And I want to also make sure that we look at those types of things, hear those types of concerns, um truly get feedback that doesn't always have to be good, and I'm not saying that it that that it isn't always great, but I do want to make sure that we're giving opportunity for ourselves to hear, to grow, to engage, um you mentioned the standards that which you need to make sure this is kind of upholding, especially for the grant requirements, but I do want to also make sure that we're providing something that's that's not just something to do, but something that can actively really be engaging and actually be helpful to our students and really get us the most out of this this opportunity.
I really see it as an amazing opportunity. I cannot express that more because I think it is really important to acknowledge that you all really really have gone above far and above and beyond. But those opportunities for growth and those challenges that we face to really um hear, look, see, and and think how can we do this better? And I And again, I I agree like teachers are taking extra time to do this. Um it is extra compensation to do it as well. So, if there's any opportunity for us to be able to not only um uh look at who and where, but also look at resources that are maybe available to help offset some of that. Um I know that there's several groups in the community who could probably help and step in. Uh and I don't say that they would do it for money or not because I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to not only engage with the community in that way, but to also get some support for our teachers who are dealing with 53 students in one gym in one gym for 2 and 1/2 hours after school, give or take.