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good evening everyone and welcome to our board meeting this evening uh there has been adequate notice of this meeting provided by the board of education january 13 2022 notice and the co-star setting for the date time in place for this meeting similar notice has been focused in the town hall the brielle school website and the borough clerk has been notified roll calculus mr baker here dr dan rogers mrs jones yes this is me mr vitale here [Music] and can someone make a motion to approve the minutes i'll make a question a second mr becker check indiana brochio yes this is yes and so now we have a presentation um our pride of brielle 2022 ms cheryl [Applause] [Music] well you know i hardly bring notes but at the pride of brielle um john mcwilliams stole the show uh i just loved everything that tim said that joanne said and i have to say to everyone there were board members there faculty there hundreds of people uh and even still today police officers are teasing cheryl pride of brielle she's like stop it stop it you know i've been to many of these dinners every year uh cheryl is one of the most dedicated to this community and i'm going to explain why and has deserved this award i think for a long time you know they're i think they're a little late but you know cheryl was born and raised in this little town of brielle went to school here this was her school um you know her family her sister is all raised here uh and she loves brielle for a million reasons but when she graduated high school went off to college got her first teaching job in bricktown and brielle was very lucky that i think after two years in britain around 1998 she came here for an interview and on the spot was high and um the impact that she has had since 98 has been tremendous teachers will tell you this and i wrote a few things down because i don't want to forget too much but when i got here and i met cheryl she was actually in second grade and she was you know the advanced computer second grade teacher where no one else would really want the computer lab rolled into their room cheryl embraced it uh when i started talking to teachers about prometheum boards people were saying not me not me cheryl raised her hand said i'll learn it i'll be one of the first i'll train others um she's truly created a classroom environment that is nurturing rigorous inclusive where all her students succeed cheryl never gives up on a student she just believes that all the children in her class deserve her all and that's why we were teasing joanne about subbing cheryl never misses a day of school she is here and dedicated to her kids and our community she collaborates with co-teachers she's had many co-teachers working in second grade in kindergarten has mentored currently we have a teacher in kindergarten laura myers just like cheryl went through school here was a braille child she was a student teacher with cheryl she left in hawaii and lauren is now back as a partner with cheryl in kindergarten like it's like that full circle when it happens it really is a beautiful thing um you want to be in her classroom uh regardless of a child's background their academic needs their ability their learning style their readiness to learn because i always share to share with parents especially kindergarten parents we know and our teachers know and especially cheryl that when kindergartners come here some know their letters like all of them some can count to 20.

i was out from 11 until about 1 30 it was a really busy night and she's at school by seven o'clock after telling me she didn't get home until 2 30 or 3 o'clock i remember a couple years back and said sure i'm like what's the latest call you'll go on no one wants to be at school at seven o'clock in the morning she says uh 3 30 4 o'clock because after 4 o'clock you know i really got to get my head ready for school so here's somebody that you know as we know uh we talked about it at the pride of brielle the amount of calls i didn't write it down but the number of calls what is the number please tell us because some people that are watching don't i want to say in show career calls i know what was also talked about that night and cheryl would talk about it because if she ever had to go on a call where some mommy or daddy was sick someone's mommy or daddy needed you know help she would go into the house and the children of the house be like oh it's mrs shaw at my house you know not some stranger it's mrs shaw and she's my teacher she's been my teacher and she can take care of mommy and daddy so you know that makes it special when you're a teacher or an emt and you live in the community when there are emergencies the first thing we always think about is how are the children dealing with it and cheryl did the great balancing act of taking care of the emergency and then assuring the young children that their mommy and daddy would be okay or their grandmother grandfather because she's gone into houses where you know the grandma or grandpa are living there her classroom is just so welcoming you know whether it's you know every three weeks she's changing the decorations in the classroom like every three weeks i don't know how she does it and um she believes that uh kids abilities or their culture or wherever they come from that she embraces it and embraces uh him so well she works tirelessly with our administration guidance counselor child center therapist to ensure that her kids get that personalized service that they so during deserve pandemic cheryl was known to go to every child's house every single week and for some children multiple times a week all right it was it was tough during the pandemic and you know she might say i lived here it's a big deal no getting to every child's house two three times a week during the pandemic was was a big effort and she just wanted to ensure that her child her children didn't miss anything especially her kindergarten their story of pandemic she delivered books she delivered games she delivered school supplies pain markers anything they needed she brought to their house so that the child would not miss out on kindergarten and most people around the state around the country went how did kindergarten teachers do it behind the screen with five-year-olds and charlotte was exemplary and her uh making kids feel very good during the pandemic that they weren't in school and that she was still here for them beyond the classroom and beyond this community here's just a few things and it's just a few things that cheryl has done volunteered to do she's been a morning monitor for many many years and what morning monitor means is when the kids can't come in this is the door when children walk through the store and there was a time where everybody walked in this door but the children that remained in this room were pre-k through third grade and cheryl welcomed every single one of them and in september it might have been kids hanging on to her when they came in because they weren't ready to go to their classroom so it was that beautiful smile that beautiful welcome that she did every single morning she's been a cheerleading coach she's been a dance chaperone she's played in the faculty game yes she has she has cheered at the faculty games she's a drama assistant she's worked with missoula she was a big participant in our als challenge ice bucket pie in the face and i think she got the most money because people just wanted it pour stuff over right here kindergartners we raised a lot of money because of cheryl she started book buddies many many years ago with joanne our fifth grade in kindergarten company uh halloween parade she's second to none on the halloween parade maybe once behind joanna okay so joanne might be first but a strong second where the two just increased halloween and um the kids the easter egg hunt had the um wrecked park she always organized our firehouse trip getting kindergartners to walk to the firehouse and have that that experience and she always took charge of that the pumpkin contest the pumpkin trips to get the pumpkins uh field day special person's day mother's day two graduation cpr training for our entire staff i told you this was a few things dinosaur day she was in charge of i guess i know one of the first to welcome student teachers and as i said before technology into the classroom very involved in our pto our booster club real ed foundation cheryl you are a true inspiration and true educator your passion and love for learning is a great example to all of us like i said and this apple says she is not only the pride of brielle but she is also the private real school every single day [Applause] she's taught all kids this is her that little things that we do every day make the biggest changes for all of us it's clear that she's truly respected love admired by students colleagues the entire community she will continue to always motivate us and to be the best person that we could be if we look through the way she teaches and kindness compassion and love [Applause] [Music] if anyone has to leave to do homework thank you very much [Music] and now at this time visitors business visitors are permitted to comment on magenta items only at this time correspondence and we'll move on to committee reports um ted district operations uh there is no deportation get ourselves organized and um sure there was a meeting on on the 10th and just just to put things in perspective um madison response total involvement um 984 states um brielle's employment england's born 223 cents that that's about 23 of the top right so um we talk about the things we do here in reality we talk about the things we do for the classroom we talk about the things we do for extracurriculars um we we should keep in mind that mas1 minus one does that for their students which includes our students right sometimes sometimes i think we lose that um there's there's a little bit too much focus i'm not going to say too much but there's a there's there's nothing enough there's always a focus on the cost of tuition and and you know it gives people the impression that it's somewhat of a liability it's it's it's an absolute asset my my my uh with that said uh starting from starting the 10th grade mata squad is going to provide mental health awareness training and it's it's to uh um bring awareness to students to recognize certain symptoms in understood which could prove to be extremely valuable unfortunately recently had right so i'm sure that's going to be a very very big focus going forward something um relative to relative to the elementary school but because we're in elementary school and it it seems it seems to be worth mentioning that the mastermind police department during pe classes from grades five through eight um they're going to conduct and when when i say you know i'm not sure if this happened or done that you know but um to go to conduct bike safety classes um to discuss expectations uh and um the responsibilities of you know of being i think you know writing sometimes we take that kind of thing for granted but i thought it might be a i big it was very responsible and and then um worth bringing up here because you know right now i i don't i don't remember it yeah i'm sure we did or we thought about it or maybe maybe we'll consider doing it and you know having that type of program here because spring spring time summertime fights bikes galore bicycle and um not too too many helmets by the way um the field of the field house uh that thirty two thousand foot structure as i'm gonna be able to have that that they will weight room and bathroom bath facilities um that is slated to be completed supply chain issues and certain disagreements between the contractor and and the department this is very interesting directly adjacent to the football field there there there was an old building that used to be the biology lab right so we sort of walk outside to the bottom of the biology lab here you know that i'm about to take my analogy um walk back into the main building um when i say six seven eight years ago that building was renovated for a question about 170 000 um it is now called the alternative school and the um first time first time this has happened as a student graduated from the alternative school and and was accepted to 15 different colleges which is which is just [Music] um is putting together information for a reference referendum um that was stating the fact that they just finished one of the others not too too long ago the total cost of the referendum is going to be about 10 million 2 million of that is allocated to the high school and it's it take care of certain parts of the facility that really weren't able to be fit into the other referendums which includes uh locker rooms and bathrooms believe it or not believe it or not we we actually used to take showers there uh i i don't think because we're taking showers here in 25 years you know it's it's just not non-existent right there's going to be a bandwidth renovation roof replacements water heater and door hardware parking lot repavements field event upgrades such as pole vault high jump and shotgun shotgun so so um thank you they think that an awful lot going on very really positive stuff and uh that's my report about doing something similar here especially this time of year my report uh this tuesday made their first we're doing a water safety program for grades five through eight and so um i'm all through my report after talking with you paulson every day we have a hike we've had a lot of police officers here in the morning and then dismissal but that'll be the first thing you have said and that's what we did you know and jimmy arenas is here in our building right now because our police officer uh tiffany is at train so and he and they do our elite program so uh i definitely want to do it because we're averaging 200 bikes every day in school and i'm not averaging 200 films you know just and we have to implore parents you know because the helmets you know so so i i think that's very and the amount of bike riding on this table if i'm getting 200 bikes here every day of school you know it's going to happen in the summer i'll do the rest of my that i think that reports something that we could hear um the the mental health awareness training what's providing that no i i i i don't have any of those specifics but i would definitely find them you know this person you know is his feelings doing this or this person said that you should just just to be aware of issues which you know when we take the time to teach children the way that they learn not necessarily the way we learn which is usually cool people teach you know you have to teach meet them where they are and then just teach them the way that they learn because we you know all of us learn but we learn differently i i love that that you know i think it's awesome that that student was accepted to those colleges and i know that there's more to come with that so thank you to that report um and um so we'll move on to kirk curricular programs thank you valley uh we did have a meeting this month it was on the 17th and it lasted a little over an hour truly not to get off topic too much but before i give my report i was just hoping that we could take a few minutes maybe in silence in light of the recent incidents in texas and the 19 children that we all lost the two staff members that we all lost i was listening to him in his report on the lego and we constantly repeat the same when your kid was playing in the street they were playing the neighborhood street that worked up the his parents worked up the road you know uh if you you needed to help you just uh ask anybody and it struck true that it doesn't matter if it's brielle or texas we live a very similar life it seems that we're taking that for granted sometimes but just 20 seconds 21 seconds of silence so thank you again the uh meeting it was attended by myself uh miss jones dr giambrozio miss wreath the uh administrators who attended for miss carlson mr savior and his love and part for the course we spoke of a number of topics surrounding curriculum uh please be reminded that my report is a submarine that is not all encompassing it's almost impossible to accomplish those meetings let alone the work that is put in by the administration and staff behind them we spoke of end-of-year activities in the eighth grade graduation the administration provided us the calendar of those end of year activities which i've attached to the board and that's including but not limited to student trips concerts challenge day graduation preparations and the eighth grade boat trip most of these will be held outside under attack or as like the boat trip uh challenge today will be held indoors and the 10 8th grade students currently out in the flow and sicknesses were desperately hoping that many mandated mass did not come back into play for brielle the calendar is not fully complete and additional items may be added brielle elementary school along with other school districts is currently suffering from the lack of school bus drivers which impacts things like flash trucks and sports drivers are now commonly paid upwards of 29 to 35 an hour a high rate which also impacts current covenants unfortunately this year the faculty of our student basketball being sponsored by the booster club was cancelled due to several factors including a dwindling number of faculty members that who are able to participate we've been approached police chief olson who declined to kill him again since it was a risk without an alternative we are hopeful that it will happen for next year's twice as well the cinderella hall historically a huge event for brielle could not be accommodated by our normal local event holders based on sheer size and being in competition with other such things as weddings and public events the pto has spent quite some time looking for a forum and trying to make it happen but was unfortunately not successful it was not a lack of effort by the organization of the pto rx leadership we also spoke of policy 24-22 health and physical education where some state politicians requested that applause be placed on the policy in monmouth county by the state department of education however the standards are not being placed on calls nor are they like most policies from the doa teaching of the standards is less left up to the individual districts brielle has made available many workshops for those faculty approximately three faculty members total with one the k through three alone who will be teaching the curriculum the administration is working closely with the faculty to be ready for september parents with strong objections can still opt out of the instructions they being too sensitive for their children as standard operating procedure letters will be sent out to parents and caregivers informing them of the lessons allowing for any questions and providing for an opportunity to exercise parental options misinformation surrounding the policy still is the driving factor of superintendent frustration in monmouth county we real elementary and acknowledge that building communication with our school community is the key to proper teaching of the required curriculum this underscores the situation for our faculty and administrating the administration noting that their comfort level has been tested by misinformation like other state policies the monmouth county superintendents regularly request state guidance because of this there are up to a dozen different workshops and trainings for the faculty focusing on the standards where misinformation is the strongest rail does not have strong concerns with the standards and our curriculum administrator muslim has suggested the idea of a parent night to review the primary standards for some time during the next school year this will allow parents to review the policy and make their own decisions brielle has been working on this a lot this year and feels we are ahead of other districts with knowing what will work and what will not work for us as a school community we're not simply rubber stamping the curriculum and remain true to the values of the braille community likewise parent and caregiver trust is a huge factor in the successful information implementation of this or any other curriculum adopted by korea we spoke of special education and particularly the brielle special parent advisory group this group helps to ensure special education representation for parents and students a presentation for speech was held on the 24th at 6 30 which i attended and other presentations are planned for the fall with 68 pending even as possible they may be general presentations in nature with specific questions being addressed separately or directly with parents reality is on track with reports for the next school year all of them being deceived at the same time instead of possibly addressing the new students they run the course well with ieps a key parental concern with the level of communication back to parents on how their children are progressing or not progressing with their individual iep instructions acknowledging the importance of the group and its collaboration with the administration is critical it is also important for us to step back and take in what has been accomplished over the past several months a year the entire intervention team is currently working on streamlined documents and processes for back to school which includes the how and when communication to parents and caregivers we spoke of the pleaser academy and summer programs where letters were recently sent out to parents inviting them to have their children participate in the academy there are currently three tiers with 62 letters sent out from payday we're hoping that we do not have a repeat of last year where participation was sparse and where best case parents opted for at home tutors we're currently waiting on friendly responses from tier 1 and have faculty ready laser academy is based primarily on the recommendation by faculty who are aware of which child needs focus this includes identifying a single issue child as opposed to a child who may have multiple issues laser academy will teach towards a child's individual needs with a child stay bearing based on responses tailored programs we also stuck to our mandate of discussing diversity equity and inclusion at each meeting and miss love continued has continued to work hard during the school year addressing mandates starting this test october and monterey monitoring them to ensure state mandates are part of lesson plans yeah this curriculum shows based on grade where we are strong or where we may be evaluating something like social studies for instance will show that between current mandates including such things as biased teaching all through inclusion instruction and genocidal history this love is utilizing a curriculum checklist as a guide keeping our faculty focused on all parts of their lesson plans regarding the eei needs not just within the text but in areas reviewing history from a critical thinking position by students can be happy further planned professional development for staff will help them to view ddi through varied technical lenses any k through eight summer writing curriculum will take into consideration mandates highlighting programs to use the same checklist for evaluating for the infusion of dpi mrs jones asks about the incorporation of disabled persons and the inclusion of them as a court as part of a larger list of different groups into the curriculum and this love affirmed their inclusion it's also part of future p-day and will be part of lesson plans and that faculty is excited for the guidance doctor dean frazier asked that an overview of the status for the gifted program people are focused for the next or forward meetings mrs love said that she would be reaching out to parents and caregivers with children who maybe may have missed the program providing additional opportunity to qualify and live and know know that we would be keeping children indefinitely in the program on case-by-case faces mrs carlson spoke to future board meetings and the invitation extended to our new jersey school board association representative to come out to review school board member roles in goal setting noting it will be a great team building exercise this is joan jones also acknowledged autism awareness month was in april he was happy to see it on the school digital board along with the children walking to school she asked that a planned event for the 2023 school year be considered for next year's awareness month there were no additional comments or items by the administration for the board members for stopping and just taking a moment to acknowledge all of those children and the young families and the teachers that were lost in it texas such a tragedy um thank you for that uh does anyone have any questions or comments uh art it's fun to say that the news was super heroic and i really really appreciate all the detail there and then i did have two comments um just one on the fact about two four two two um the line and says that des does not have any strong concerns or objections as i pointed out in november i still do have concerns and objections to the curriculum and the guides that's being provided um to this i do trust and and i really appreciate the transparency here which is a key part of your message in terms of what's being done i love the idea of having a uh a night for parents to understand what the curriculum changes are and what we've done on our website to have those the curriculum be transparent i do think it's not so much about deeming that the topic is too sensitive for the children but maybe that's not appropriate or that parents believe that it's their responsibility and their right to be able to have those conversations with their children rather than school um so i did wanted to point that out and the second piece that i wanted to bring out was under uh 242 as well that the the regulation the policy and the regulation and this this may just be i might be moving too far into this but both the policy and regulation and the law call out diversity and inclusion and i want to say fully that i support what's being discussed here specifically the critical thinking uh viewing the historical events that we're putting on all of this but i have to think that the legislature intentionally left equity out of the legislation and the policies that are better in place and it may just be an oversight i know that dei is a common term uh in terms of a study area but two four two two does specifically say diversity and conclusion it does not include difficulty so i just would like to hear from this love uh mr jargon's love on on that topic impossible we know that i think that a huge issue in the country i was amazed that the uh the soccer team were able to finally pull off what they were able to pull off with the support that they had um so yeah without a doubt that they included you said yeah either the policy or regulation or the code i try any other questions or comments thank you um so we'll move on to human resources john committee met actually two weeks with ago administration as a result of that there's two items on tonight's agenda d5 and d6 that were discussed at that meeting as a result of the meeting there was no committee report because uh mr allison updated the board a few days after in an email as to some static genius that was the result of our committee unfortunately abbreviated notes are are included today did you receive them before the meeting i apologize for the like submission we had a change we changed the time around on this um so that we did meet on on monday at 4pm and uh met for an hour uh virtual league i was uh jones are mrs jones our president um as long as myself and mr becker and dr davrozio mrs carlson and squiggly joined from the administration there was a lot to cover uh because we had nine policy and regulations that applied to this school from alert two to seven and five uh from two two one which were previously not adopted because we had to prioritize some of the covalent policies in 221 um so we're including those those additional ones here tonight um we also did briefly discuss the continued need for a policy document management system and i have made a recommendation i don't know if you have a chance to review it we'll talk briefly about that but i did want to cover the policies and some of the most precedent action items um so a lot of the changes uh apply to uh harassment intimidation voting most notably that we are now required to report this the administrator is required to report manually to the board the number of possible hib incidents that were decided not to be or adjudicated not to be hit and we are updating that policy to have that occur in our july board meeting so basically when an incident is reported administrator has some discretion to determine whether or not it falls in our hiv this new requirement is that we would get a tally of all the incidences that were reported and where that discretion was was given to determine that it was not an hiv there were more requirements in terms of hivs in terms of making sure that we have the ability for parents to complete an online numbered form and then we have that information on our website we currently have two places on our website where we discuss this topic or at least two we have an anti-bullying section and we also have our student code conduct handbook so we'll be updating that uh information there although we are following up with sherry adams to understand our uh uh what that means in terms of online numbered form because it wasn't exactly clear we also have to update the website to identify mr sabia as the school climate state coordinator and then there's another uh a very important timely topic with this atrocity in texas uh fresh in our minds um in terms of our evacuation plans and our security drills uh the first being that uh while these are critically important uh events for our students that some districts have taken some of the drills too far to the point where they can be considered traumatic going into some of the details but there are some restrictions in terms of what can be done during those drills and to assure that they are age appropriate there also is a very important update to the use of our schools for groups and events that are not sponsored by the school so for instance our sports teams would not apply to this because those will be led by faculty or staff who are familiar with our evacuation security drills but we have other folks using our school um recreation department mom with basketball et cetera and we basically need to the community decided that we need to provide a packet of an explanation of what our procedures are for anybody who is a supervisor or supervising that type of activity in the school and there was a question that came up during the committee about what about the substitutes and our standing procedure is that the faculty is responsible to provide that type of security drill information in their lesson plans but i think this is a good opportunity for us to make sure that this is a very comprehensive packet for anybody that's going to be an adult in school whether they're a substitute a lunch aide or somebody coming in here for a wreck basketball game as a coach to understand what happens and what our security policies are and what our evacuation and lockdown policies are okay um so those are the major the major action items here um medalli i don't know if you have anything that i'll note to note from your uh highlighting the um we had we had several ones that um like you said because we had to prioritize these were left over from the previous year and so we thought we needed to update them so we have and the report went out for everyone to read and if there are any questions please contact me or sean if you have any questions but uh there are updates with um administrative employment contracts um cooperative purchasing some of the changes and updates on are revised to include a language change there was the 7440 uh school district security sean talked about that property inventory and um and the use of school facilities and that again has to do like sean just explained um making sure that anyone who uses our facility is is trained and knows about our procedures our safety procedures and i think it's a good idea to prepare a package if you would be able to um select who would be in charge of doing that but i think it's a good idea um teachers always put that that's part of their lesson plan package um but i think that especially in light of what just happened and unfortunately it continues to happen in our schools to have a set packet for anyone who enters the building this way our substitute teachers are aware um and then people who use our facilities there are groups that are not part of our school that use our facilities and and the way the policy reads is that whoever the supervisor is they're responsible for getting the packet and then training their um their people their group system we really ran out of time for the meeting but i did provide this series asked for a kind of like a side by side where prices what are the pros and cons of different platforms um and i just want to point out that since 2020 strauss sma has provided nearly 100 policy and regulation changes so there's a lot of volume of changes that are occurring and some of them remind you that some of them are you know the code wants to be abolished or new et cetera and we really still need to have these under control because as i look to see we have this in place in the in place i don't have a reference for this for any of our policies so the two big main options that we've looked at just to recap strauss estimate and paid to provide us with those policy updates and who's written our policy guides to date as a service they have a software platform that is lacking some features uh in terms of being able to do versioning and paper trail school boards offers a board docs they've negotiated a great with us with a platform called board docs and uh i looked at the prices of both and the cost of converting our policies to school boards in fact the school board doesn't really provide us with enough updates um you know for 100 changes that that strauss gave us school boards had about 35 in the same time um and i don't know if that's a that's a qualitative analysis but it is quantitative one and i don't see the updates frequently coming from school boards we do get them free as part of our dues to school boards but i did a cost comparison what i would recommend is that the state of strauss s a continue to use their policy numbering system and their policy updates i think they're very thorough um but we would use the school boards platform or docs platform and it's a total annual difference of about seven hundred dollars to do it that way not including our school board uh dues which we pay for other reasons beyond just possible updates so anybody has any questions on that i'm happy to discuss it um but that would be my recommendations and then on the software discussion front uh mrs jones also brought up that you've had experience with a platform called hipster which allows us to manage these hiv concerns with strong documentation which is also part of those working policy changes and we have not had a chance to investigate that but i will look into that as a as an option for us as an additional software platform to manage our agendas did you share that with all the board members today and this is linked on the new business policy document that was a really good thank you for putting that together um it was really easy to see both um to be able to compare both companies um so if if you haven't had a chance to look at that um take a look at that and then um you know we could just discuss it further and make a decision on that but thank you for doing that doing that research on both of those companies does anyone have any questions thank you again sean and uh community relations um mrs mcdonough isn't here well esther mcdevitt is not cheating and she asks that i give uh or attend the brielle parent advisory group meeting just the other night which sponsored a presentation by our spl teachers or speech and language teachers phyllis and mandy both with an impressive punitive years of experience not only in classrooms but gabrielle itself they give a very comprehensive presentation on a uh hearing and speech uh it was attended fairly okay by the public or to parents there other than the real group leaders and myself it was impressive they're very impressive people they they know their stuff and you walked away very confident knowing that they had a high level and a big concern as well professionalism and experience there were many ideas floated around some of which i spoke to in my report but i'm excited to move forward with the committee with the takeaways that if we can address the challenges of communication as well as parental participation we would be making some good any questions so we're going to move on to action items [Music] you know out that um you know another day where you know you turn on the news and there's a school shooting it's just you know my recollection i was a school a middle school principal one column line happened and um many years later i got to go to a round table with superintendents and i met the superintendent i met the principal at conway high school and he shared his story and it's a very these stories don't end well for the people that live and the children that experience shooting in their schooling and then in 2012 when sandy hook happened i think that shook us to the core and we did a lot of things here because of it and it was two years later that i got to go uh with 300 superintendents and i met the superintendent from sandy hook and i got to hear her story and um and there's many others and now they're talking about children in texas and it's just terrible that these other conversations were happening i had several teachers some reported to come this morning and some came to me saying that they didn't sleep last night and uh it's just you know as a teacher to just think that that could happen in elementary school and you know what what children are exposed to or what parents are exposed to and um my contact with chief olsen said yeah i'm gonna have my police officers at your site parents you know did wave to us and say thank you for being here but it's just hard to believe that this is just another story i have nathan gregor say to me today how can an 18 year old buy the soft weapon but they can't purchase cigarettes around them and i couldn't answer the question that's what they is you're 18 you can't buy cigarette dreams you can't play out but you're 18 and you combine the software i just said these are some questions that we have to deal with we are very busy in the next month of school this friday um our eighth graders are having their career day is back uh june 4th north south is back and then everything in between we have government elections going on next week our eighth graders are going to gettysburg for an overnight trip uh special person's day is happening great it's k1 2 and 3.

pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all if we can remain standing i would just like to have a moment of silence for the victims in yesterday's horrific event in the robb elementary school in texas thank you mr alfano thank you mr roman gino just like to read a quick statement if i may the new jersey open public's meeting law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public who have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies in which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act the clinton side park board of events caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time in place there are posted in the offices of the borough clerk the borough library the borough rec department the office of the board of ed and the offices of school number 3456 and high school on april 1st 2022 and notices were forwarded to reporters of the record april 1st 2022 this is an official meeting i'd like to take the role if i may mr played in that show uh mrs abreu here mr capanos yes mrs freda here mr garcia here mr de drew yeah dr pantaliano here mr russo here mr shelley yeah here and i don't see mr yanussi okay mr roman gina okay uh before i introduce we have some students with us tonight and mr helm from the high school um as a result of yesterday's like i had mentioned before during our moment of silence horrific event i did receive a number of phone calls and emails from concerned parents and i did want to read a letter that i posted to our website today dear parents guardians today the entire cliffside park school community is grieving the horrific event that took place yesterday at the robb elementary school in uvalde texas please be assured that the with the support of our board of education and my entire administrative team we have in place all state mandated security procedures that provide for the well-being and safety of your children and our staff in addition we are very fortunate to have a partnership with the borough that allows us to employ retired armed police officers in each of our schools with additional police presence in and around our school properties counseling for your children is always available in all of our schools for those who may need the mental and emotional support from our professionals if you have any questions please feel free to contact your child's principal or my office so this was posted to our website today mr helm thank you very much for coming tonight mr helm is uh one of our science teachers in the high school he's in charge of our stem academy and he's here to honor some of our students who did some great work this year yes yes thank you mr armageddon sure good evening members of the board good evening mr alfano i'm very proud of our stem academy they've been doing amazing work uh we have two students can't be here tonight kalali yamamoto is a member of the band karina cheek is working and just to mention that makes me recall how effectively the team worked because we have a number of athletes we have musicians they're all honor students are taking courses that have a very high level of commitment and very time demanding so that being said i put a few pamphlets on the dice which is the work that they created so they started with nothing that's what they produced uh with that work they became the champions for the state of new jersey that's great uh and so they do have an award for being new jersey state champions and as representatives of the state of new jersey they went on to compete in an international competition they did not win the 200 000 scholarship each but they were awarded a national merit award for the united states very nice so i'd like to present those awards to our students and let's see okay ariana should be here soon brianna fuentes and brianna this award is to recognize you as a new jersey state champion and i have one more for you and this award is to recognize you as a united states national merit award winner nice work thank you all right ariana galindo arianna katie solis congratulations katie new jersey state champion and united states national american thank you we have one final student sarah kim who should be on her way okay but i'll just set this aside for now that's fine so thank you very much for your time thank you so ladies congratulations you should be very very proud did great work this year and mr helm i do want to thank you because i know uh that you put a lot of time in with our stem academy you were right there from the very beginning so it's really a lot of your efforts and work that really led these students to get these awards so on behalf of the board thank you very much thank you thank you [Applause] okay any questions comments before we begin okay so just a couple of reminders i have in my report we are getting to the point in the year where we're closing in on the end of the school year just a couple of reminders we will be running as i mentioned before our summer program in each of our elementary schools our high school summer program will be will be at the middle school this year because of the work that we're doing at the high school but we will be running a program for eligible students in grades k through 12.

julianne brander who's a first-year middle school teacher with us will be transferred up to the high school as an english teacher and jamie weiss who's been a long-time special education teacher with us and has coached a number of sports will be moving over to a child study team position she will be in ld and that will take effect september 1st good luck to all those staff members top of page three we are approving as we do each year uh mr alfano's contract which is an annual contract and has been approved by the county as our business administrator administrator board secretary detective sergeant mike miller will be serving beginning july 1st as our residency offer officer at a stipend of 6 000 per year we are in the process of hiring new staff russell nichols who comes to us from harvard with a doctorate he'll be teaching middle school science with us effective september sukyong lim who also has experience as a math teacher will be coming on as a new high school math teacher with us september 1st gabrielle mendoz mendoza who also has experience in the field of special education will be taking over a vacancy in our autism program at school number four so i know they're excited about coming on board in september we will have a number of other new staff as we continue through the year the very last resolution on page three uh we're hiring a part-time custodian to replace our retirement anthony budafaro who'll be has started at school six and the middle school page four uh just skip right down to the bottom of page four we have a resolution where we have one of our speech uh teachers christina camisa carbone will be uh is requesting a maternity leave uh effective september 26th she will be returning on or about february 6th also top of page five claudia hiles who's a secretary in my office claudia is also on a maternity leave currently uh claudia will be returning on or about october 3rd after a paternity and family leave very bottom of page 5 we have a number of bus drivers who you know work with us during the school year in a ten and a half month contract and we're hiring a number of these bus drivers to um work during the summer you know that during the summer it seems as as busy as the school year we have a number of special education programs out of the district that students need to be bussed we also have special education programs in district where students need to be bus so bottom of page five and top of page six where we're appointing bus aides those people are going to be working this summer anywhere from four weeks to seven weeks it depends on the program that the students are in most students i believe are in a summer program that's five or six weeks if they're out of district bottom of page six we are appointing all of our fall and winter coaches we haven't posted the spring yet but we are appointing our fall and winter coaches bottom of page six uh and continued on to page seven uh that would be high school and that would be uh middle school also i'll be posting the spring sports at a later date and we'll probably make those appointments uh either in july or if not september but there's always a need for the fall and the winter because a lot of those programs take begin in the summer as you know uh page eight is just a resolution as i mentioned about mr alfano being reappointed page nine we are our second reading for the policies and regulations that i gave you last month we also have a first reading i shared with you last meeting that i had met with the student council at the high school about some recommendations they had made to me regarding a change in the dress code and i gave you a copy of what was agreed upon and we'll make that final resolution of appointing or approving the dress code so that that will go into effect for high school and middle school september 1st okay page 10 of the policies and procedures uh we are approving fire drills we're also approving the self-evaluation that our board of education did for the 21-22 school year i did email you a copy but i also gave you a hard copy that should be in your folder regarding the self-evaluation we're approving nurses reports we're approving bullying incidents and investigations that took place and again that's a confidential but we do need to have a resolution that we did do the investigation but the outcome and the results are confidential results that are only shared with myself and the bullying uh committee and obviously school principal uh we're approving uh the week of june 20th which is our last full week of school as we have in the past we were having half days uh that week uh staff full day students half day and the times for each of the uh release times for the students is indicated uh on that in that resolution uh we're approving the um to enroll in the njsia association which we do every year that's a formality the state athletic association and then if we go over to page 13 uh approving the use of our buildings and or grounds that are requested by staff members pto organizations for primarily fundraisers and that's it mr alfano anything in finance a couple items you know first of all i'd like to thank the board and mr omagino for giving me an opportunity again to work for the district in 2223 i appreciate everyone's support it's a unique group and i just want to take the time to uh to thank everyone the 22-23 year we're ready to open we have opened the 22-23 year we are starting to do uh a variety of different purchase orders to our contractors and vendors so uh 2223 has been kicked off even though the formality is that it kicks off july 1 but we really open things up in may to kickstart all the purchase orders and all the agreements and all the vendors and contractors so that's that's going full uh full speed ahead uh we are going to do a pre-audit as we've done in the last three or four years we bring our order a lead orders on site uh in may or june we go through a variety of topics to make sure when he comes in for his formal audit that we are well prepared he'll be coming in june 8th uh we are going to we are in the process of working on the year-end close to understand the surplus and as mr capano mentioned we have multiple capital projects going on this summer that we had a pre-construction meeting on may 18th and we'll be meeting again in june and pretty much every other week after that i'll keep the facilities committee up to speed to allow them to attend the meetings but like i said we've kick-started those projects and our end goal is to have everything done uh when the bell rings uh in early september that's uh pretty much it mr roman j okay uh any questions comments on the consent agenda yes especially in light of yesterday's events and what we said before so we we entered into an agreement with care plus last august as a result of monies that we received with from esser funds and um speaking to genera rooster director of special services and our principals we felt that there was a need to have more counseling mental health counseling available to students so care plus is an organization that provides that they have one of their counselors housed at the high school permanently so that woman has been there all this year in the elementary schools we are entered into an agreement with palisades park where we share a counselor between palisades park and ourselves and when they're in our district i believe it's three days a week they rotate to different schools and based on recommendations from primarily staff members to principal to care plus will will counsel students or parents may ask us for counseling for their children so they have been a great organization and they also will serve in case we have students who might be in distress students that might be talking about suicide they see them right away they'll do a clearance on those students if need be or they'll recommend send them to a hospital for clearance so in addition to clear care plus which has really been a great organization for us uh and we've able we've been able to utilize them through the estimated and not local funds we also used a jewish family services who we have a contract with as part of our 21st century grant and um they have about four or five councils that they sent to us in all of our schools at various time to counsel students during the day they do family counseling at night for us and i also contract them in the summer to counsel our students who participate in our rec program so if a family wanted to get counseling for their child either during the day or after school who would they reach out to you right the person that they would reach out to would be the school principal the school principal sometimes the school principal is aware of it they'll reach out to the home but if it's vice versa call the principal and they would determine at that time if it's best to recommend them to jfs for counseling or maybe depending upon the situation possibly care plus but jfs is after school jfs no they also do during the school day but we have what we do have their school counselors yes we have after school counseling during the day counseling and like i said the parent counseling at night so i think we offer a lot of resources for parents and i know our principals do a good job of reaching out to parents when we identify a student who might be in need but as you mentioned if there is a parent at home that maybe we're not aware of that parent should reach out to us okay very good question thank you very good anyone else mr uh salvador i don't think there were any questions from right okay so at this time i would like to call for a motion to accept the consent agenda that's uh mr garcia may i have a second if i may please i'll say that's a mr capano okay like take the vote if i may and mrs abreu yes mr capano yes but i'm gonna be staying on page two from rick abstain page two from maria okay thank you mr capano mrs fredo yeah uh mr garcia yes mr yes dr pantaliano yes mr russo yes mr shelley yes mrs taravaccia yes so move mr roman okay so before i call for a motion to close just two quick things just a reminder that we have a long memorial day weekend coming up beginning tomorrow we return to school next wednesday and june 22nd is our work session steve fogerty will be here to discuss a couple of different topics and then june 29th will be our our regular meeting and i will email the board obviously reminding you about the athletic event coming up and also graduation so on and so forth so uh motion to close i'll make a motion i'll second okay that's uh mr capano and mr shelley okay so move thank you for

okay it is 4 p.m and the asdb board meeting is now live hello everyone uh it is 4 pm now it's time set for the special board meeting uh of the asdb board of directors uh just quickly i'll do the call to order i don't see sue k here now so i will do it um david nigro is present lynn davison is not president aaron wonders president mike gordon present dean howard president sue cake and ifill uh is not president linda bove linda is not president brittany buchanan i'm present and tv chance okay uh great so we have three four five um six so we we can proceed uh we'll go to uh 2.01 information and discussion item non-renewal of contract with desert voices for preschool services um you know on on this one you know the reason that we're here today is uh the board was informed uh last week that um the superintendent decided not to renew the contract for desert voices the board knows that the voices is one of the nonprofits that provides education to some students on behalf of the agency there is a preschool contract there's also a first free contract that's not effective this is just preschool when we look at that at who that affects and really the reason why this had to be a special meeting and not um you know put on the july agenda uh there were three children three families uh that were set to go to those voices uh and uh next year in in the you know starting in august uh and now that's that's in jeopardy they can't do that uh in the manner in which uh they were intending so because there are three families that were affected by this uh you know we i wanted to call the special meeting um and and talk about it uh and i wanted to get uh you know people's thoughts on it you know certainly for me i'm not here to take away choice for families especially with just a couple of months before the next school year um so i uh i'm certainly very concerned about it even if it were just one family but here we have three so you know in this item you know the next item on the agenda we'll talk about policy changes and why we propose some of those but but here i just wanted to get the board's opinion on uh you know on this action or or anything that anyone wanted to say about this about this topic dean david i i agree with what you're saying i'm concerned about the three families that we're getting ready to go to desert voices i'm totally in agreeing agreement with the whole um issue of choice i hope that becomes a topic and then my biggest question is why did we actually cancel this contract so hopefully those will get answered in this conversation right there there is the the substantive issues of why uh it was not renewed and in a moment we can have i can see tv's hand is up but in a moment we can have the superintendent talk about that and and the board can talk about that uh you know but in terms of the the second half of that is what we're going to do with those three families and how we're going to make sure that there's you know a continuity of services so um uh pv i think your hand was up yes thank you president david nigro so i'm trying to understand the situation particularly with what has happened and i feel like i'm walking into this meeting not knowing enough it does seem like some of the board members might know more than others so i'm not too sure entirely where any additional information is coming from i think there seems to be a little bit of maybe unfairness to the rest of the board if some of the members appear to know more than other members i just wanted to make sure that we have that clarity in the information and the transparency just to make sure that the information is available to the entire board at the same time i don't want us as a board to jump to any conclusions before we completely understand the why and what is the behind the scenes workings so if the concern is the three families at the same time i do want to make sure that there are appropriate funds and fiscal decisions that are being made for the entire agency so i would definitely like to hear more from superintendent annette reichman and from dr benedek i understand that she does oversee the contract for the services provided for preschool so i would like to see and hear their thoughts and perspectives and explanations so that way we can if we have any additional questions or further discussion if this decision is is making sense for us uh right petey i'm not sure uh what other information you uh may be interested in um you know but again there's two two kind of subtopics to this i mean the substance of why and then what is the agency's plan for those three and and the superintendents assume generations emailed to the board explain that plan uh that was to all of the board uh i'm not i'm not happy with that plan um and i want to talk about it um but if you want to talk about substance we can do that superintendent reichman yeah if you can explain my goal is the superintendent or two folder two goals one of the goals is to provide the best educational support to all of our students at asdb my second goal is to make best use of the agency's resources and that is the best use of the taxpayers money so that is how i framed or how i framed all of my decisions here that framework was also applied to the decision to take a look at the options of renewing the contract with desert voices this is for their preschool services i would like to now turn it over to dr benedict because her and i have been in conversation for almost a year about this decision we did not make this decision overnight we took a lot of time thoughts and consideration and collected a lot of data to try to make sure that our impact on students were minimal so dr benedict hi good afternoon superintendent reichman and superintendent assistant superintendent rex and cooper and board president night grill and members of the board i want to first thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share more information about this decision um before i go into anything though i'd like to clarify whether or not everybody has received the summary that annette provided i don't know if she provided it just to to president nigro or if it went to the whole board but it outlined the why has everyone seen that document yes that uh dr benedict that email went to the entire board okay perfect thank you so you have there that you have that to refer to um it outlines um bullet points where we were three years ago why we entered into this contract um what circumstances are now that led us to this decision as well as the impact um one thing i want to clarify is um the three students that are being referenced that's actually not accurate um as that there are there are not three students enrolled there that are um going to be going there again next that's not an accurate statement i hesitate to go into any detail there because there are only three students and i would be completely breaking confidentiality if i went into any detail um about those children because there are so few of them and so i want to hesitate uh to do that but if you refer to the impact you'll see in the first bullet point there are more details there right and we see that i know that it's a very small number of children uh there is there are there are two children that are slated there are three children that would be there are are intended to go there next year next year two of which would be new uh one of which is their now um but my understanding of you know from this email uh that students being reevaluated that placement might change um but but it at least as of the date of this email last week it hasn't and again we don't have to talk more about it but there are three from the date in this email there are three students who were expecting to be at desert voices starting in the fall and are now no longer going to be able to do that possibly yes two students whose meetings have been held the district has decided on the lre the lre was desert voices i want to remind but the process hasn't started yet the institutional voucher has not been applied for yet um everything hasn't transferred over the ieps were just held in the last couple of weeks i want to i'm sorry go ahead i think it's i understand that the institutional voucher i mean it's we're two months away from the school year but they're slated to go there they're families and they believe that they are going there of course and so let me explain a little further for and i apologize if some of you already know this um but the decision as to what the least restrictive environment is for a child is not driven by funding source a district makes the decision as to what the least restrictive environment is for a child and how it's funded isn't parent's concern the district has to figure it out and so those districts i make very very clear in every one of these meetings that i attend and the only reason i attend is if the district is interested in desert voices or fbc same applies there they're interested in a possible placement there the reason i'm at the table at that point in time i'm not part of the iep team i am a possible play we are a possible placement there to share what our options are it when it comes to the decision of the least restrictive environment that does not involve asdb that involves the district and the family that are the iep team if if that team the parent and district decide that desert voices i'll use of course as an example here is the least restrictive environment that's where the child's going the institutional voucher became available a couple of years ago when we entered into this contract that allows districts the option to enroll the children with us since we are an lea now and then basically we then now of course are the lea and we are privately placing the child at desert voices or fbc so with that said whether the voucher is available or not has no bearing on whether a child can go to desert voices or not we of course know though that there are many factors involved when districts make decisions we all probably know that there are districts that are very open to looking at private placements for their students there are districts that really want to keep their their students in house and do everything they can to provide services there and certainly money is always a consideration a district's always going to look out for their bottom dollar there are multiple ways in which a child can attend desert voices or fbc they can be institutionally vouchered through us if the district so chooses the district can privately place them there there are many students that attend desert voices and fbc where we are not involved at all where the district privately places them there and then of course in the event that the parent and the district disagree to the placement and the district does not agree to an out-of-district placement then the family of course has their due process rights and they can unilaterally while they go to mediation with the district if they choose they may privately enroll themselves they may unilaterally enroll their child at desert voices just like fbc if desert voices or fbc say that it's an appropriate placement that they can meet the child's needs and then there are scholarships available and they work with families i don't get in i'm not involved in any of those decisions says at that point asdb would not be a part of it so with the cancer not i'm sorry not the canceling but the not renewing um our contract was up june 30 will be up june 30th and the decision to not renew well based on all of the factors that you saw in that um handout um it does not it does that does not mean those children won't go there they're out there iup say that's where they're going i i understand that's where i say that they're going but the way that they go there and the the path that they go there is is gone and i understand that you you know the district can privately place but that is far more complicated than what you have described um and the reason for that is the the the amount that the agency pays to desert voices is a deeply discounted rate versus what districts will pay so the desert voices came to us in january and gave a report um i'll refer to that right now their preschool tuition at that time january of this year was thirty three thousand nine hundred and seventy five dollars that's what a district would pay to privately place at desert voices the contract rate the discounted full-time placement was twenty three thousand seven hundred maybe three dollars that happens to be the amount of the voucher that the agency gets i will say i believe there's a difference that when there is a child that the district only gets half that voucher money i believe for preschool because it's half day um and not the full amount we get the agency and the institutional vouchers the full amount the 23 783 so it's over ten thousand dollar difference um so now what those families are facing is instead of you know i know their iep says that but their district is going to have to make a choice because the districts hold the ips in this area the district's going to have to make choice uh do i pay the extra ten thousand dollars to privately place or do i serve them in-house uh which they might do uh or do i i mean i'm not sure what the other options are really i mean i know we have zero men and that's it but that's the that's the financial reality of it their enrollment at desert voices is in no way guaranteed with the discontinuing of this of this contract tv this is tv uh it seems like dr benedict you wanted to respond i'll go and let you have that opportunity again i i want to emphasize that the decision as to where a child is educated is not driven by funding and where the money is coming from to send the child there and like you just acknowledge there is a lot to that president nigro but that is the responsibility of the district it is not asdb's responsibility to make sure that districts are doing what they're supposed to do and make the appropriate decisions for children we're there as a resource to provide our professional expertise um when when called upon um and for any district who just had a meeting and determined that the lre was desert voices to turn around two weeks later and say oh it's not the lre anymore that's not that's going to be very questionable that's going to call things into question i mean the problem is we wouldn't even be having this conversation have we just renewed the contract and that child could go to desert voices right and and pv wants to talk and i'll let him talk but the the fact of the matter is the contract been renewed that child could have gone to desert voices wouldn't have cost the agency a dime we would have gotten the voucher and forwarded onto those voices um and now that's now that's objective so uh tv yes thank you president nico and i would also like to remind the board that we want to make sure that communication access is equitable it's important that people do recognize that in the appropriate order that one is called on that we do have equitable opportunities to speak so please if we can request to be fair to one another when we are putting in our input for the variety of board members so with that said i am trying to understand the fiscal component aside with it being the school district responsibility that aside the contract itself even aside can you help me understand can asdb provide the similar lsl services that deserve voices is able to provide yes and thank you for asking that um i live eat and breathe this every day i have for the last year both desert voices and fbc um and those two contracts while they are set up similarly um they are different and that fbc has what we can't offer at this time we have what desert voices offers we didn't three years ago we only had a few individuals in-house who were trained in strategies um to promote listening and spoken language they were new to us they were primarily in our birth to three program we did not have the capacity we also had a half-day program we split children by age and not by language level we did not have a scope and sequence there were many many reasons why we sought out and put out an rfp to see if someone could assist us in providing those services with the intent to continue to grow our own capacity to provide that we now have that we now have a full-day program with a scope and sequence with 30-minute rotations just like desert voices does of intense language instruction that depending on the child's mode of communication and that one-to-one or two-to-one one instruction is in asl if that is what's specified on the child's iep it is uh spoken language strategies are used um with that child with another child in another classroom with another teacher well versed in that on their way to certification and so we do offer those the primary difference is when you're at desert voices you will not see any sign language in the environment at asdb of course you will not see it in those 30-minute intense language instructional sessions but you will see it on the playground you will see it around the school because it's a deaf school or i'm sorry so i just want to make sure that i'm understanding you correctly dr benedict currently at asdb you can provide an lsl program and that is was not provided previously and i think that's a great significant improvement in the growth of asdb currently does asdb have a gap in services that desert voices can fulfill or will need to fulfill again no we offer that i'm sure dean will attest to though as well there is controversy within our field that sends some people believe strongly that even though we may offer a you know listening and spoken language approach in those one-on-one intense language sessions that it's not a true listening and spoken language program because when the children are on the playground or in other environments there is sign language however we rely on research that tells us that that doesn't interfere with the communication development of children it only promotes it um to be able to have um exposure to two languages another thing that we do very differently than we did before we used to offer what were called spoken english classes dual classes and asl classes kids arrived to school went to their three-year-old or four-year-old classroom either listening a spoken language asl or total communication dual where they spoke and signed at the same time we have moved away from that it's been a challenge for a lot of people who have for many years educated children using total communication but what we promote now is that we are either sign only or voice only because when you present both languages at the same time you degrade the quality of each language and you're simply presenting broken two broken languages to a child so if there are both signing and speaking children in an environment together like on the playground we do what's called sandwiching and we'll either sign speak sign or vice versa speak sign speak and it's working and it's beautiful um i know dean's been waiting for quite a while dean did you want to jump in yeah this is being a little equity equity is exactly right so this is pv uh all right president nigro if you could establish some sort of order to how we can communicate i want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to add to the conversation and ask their questions perhaps one board member at a time can ask a question when that board member is done then they can turn off their camera and the next person can hey how about you give other people a chance to talk to because so far you've commanded the whole conversation okay i don't appreciate the accusation i'm a little baffled because initially when the president was talking i was waiting to be recognized and i want to make sure everyone has equal opportunity in order to make sure that you are recognized and that we have a clear means of communication and if that means the president needs to call to order um i would like to make a motion that one person be able to ask their questions and move on or if and allowing that person to finish their questions for clear communication access uh tv uh this is david nigro you know we uh we don't have a time limit right now i want everyone to be able to ask their questions uh and say what they want to say um and you know on zoom it's a little bit harder to do uh then in uh you know real life when we can be together in the same room uh if you would like me to call on people i can do that that's that's fine um and that's that's the you know the convention that we had followed uh when we had zoom meetings more frequently is to have the person turn on the camera and then we would know that they would want to speak and i would call on the person uh you know that i noticed first um you know in in the course of the last conversation dr benedict uh recognized uh uh dean uh to speak um i think that sounds fine with me uh and if you guys want me to to call on people then that's that's fine i can do that for the rest of the meeting thank you president just more than anything i want to make sure that all board members um have equal participation just need to remember that with an interpreter there is a slight delay so it may look like a person who is signing is done but they're not in fact done yet and then when the when somebody else just speaks up i i just want to again make sure that we all have equal access to this meeting so again if one if you would prefer one person ask one question and then move on to the next person or do you prefer waiting for one board member to finish completely and then move on i just want to make sure everyone has equal access and there's no cultural misunderstandings during this time all right uh thank you pb i can call on uh folks um and i know that dean had his hand up before so uh dean if you wanted to speak yeah thank you president niagara this is dean so i'm trying to figure out a couple things number one if we're doing the same thing that if asdb is doing the same thing that does our voices are doing what are the outcomes and we've had conversations with desert voices desert voices has come to our board meeting explain what they do and explain their outcomes and my impression without a lot of the facts behind it is desert voices is actually getting better outcomes with that said what's the data that shows the comparative minutes provided and outcomes and the actual true cost per student that's one of my questions thank you dean um i i will speak to part of that and then i'll let sheena speak to the financial piece of that because um the the num the dollar amount that that president niagara has referred to does not calculate the cost that we now and cure because we are in lea we now transport desert voices has no related services so if a child needs otp anything else we provide that we have to provide school psychologists in the event an evaluation is needed um so there's a lot many many many more indirect costs my time my staff's time um and that does not account for that but i'll let sheena go into more detail but i can respond to um your question about outcomes um because that is what it's all about right um and desert voices serves a very different population than we do we have a variety of children who come in to us come to us some with no language some with very minimal language some from homes where there are three languages used english spanish and sign that's not the typical demographic profile of a class that starts at desert voices they have had a few students and again this is very difficult because um i do not ever want to become near to crossing the line of breaking confidentiality and when you're talking about but a very low incident population there's risk at doing that um but the there have been instances um where children who have gone there who had a few more needs than than just the impact of their hearing loss on their language that they have ended up going back to the district desert voices would be the first to say they did not have the capacity to serve these children they did not have the background or the knowledge um i am seeing in our own program as the students that come to us who are more and more and more involved that we too are having difficulty but we take all of these kids so if you look at the overall outcomes of our group and their group it's going to be different now if we desegregated that data and we just looked at those children in our program that had a similar demographic profile to the desert voices children i can have that to you in july as you know as part of the strategic plan we've been participating in odyssey and all of the data is in now from this from the fall and the spring i can tell you anecdotally that it looks very very good i can also tell you that i attended all of our preschool graduations last week and just yesterday yesterday i attended our preschool graduation in east valley and i want to give take this opportunity to come in cindy drew and her instructional assistant tommy they are the most incredible set of educators they are out there all by themselves doing this day in and day out and they were tasked with doing what ptsd did and that's going to a full day and that was serving the needs of both children who just spoke and children who just signed and they started the year with four children ended with seven they had four graduate yesterday i witnessed the most incredible preschool graduation not to say if you think you know the ones at asdb and pdsd were great too but what she accomplished in the same room with children who had completely different needs the way she used her space the way she used her aid she was able to provide the instruction that children needed in spoken language and the instruction that people that children needed in asl because her aid is deaf and she signs as well the children were all up doing their performances they were all speaking signing their parents they had grown a community there must have been 30 parents grandparents communities that we don't have at asdb at ptsd because everyone comes from so far away and it was true inclusion it was true celebration of language and these kids i've never heard kids talk like that coming out of one of our programs in the three years i've been here i mean it was phenomenal and siblings coming up and signing to their deaf little brothers and sisters and i know that's just anecdotal and like i said i'll have more quantitative data for you in july that reports being prepared thank you um on the same lines you've seen i do share a concern and i want to make sure that we have all the data to make sure that the decision is appropriate and correct i do want to make sure that i restate my question so currently gaps and services are there gaps and services that desert voices need to fill because asbb cannot fill those gaps and the second question related to that if there are no gaps is desert voices considered a dual service and my third question is if we do um move forward with not renewing the contract i did notice in the email it says that the contract can be renewed at any time i might i want to double check to make sure i understand correctly if we do get a student referral that does need desert voices can we as an agency go back into negotiations and establish a contract without any delay for that specific student's needs okay so let me make sure i have your three questions one do we not have the ability to serve children that attend desert voices and therefore do we need tester voices is that your first okay and then your second question refresh me your second question i was focused on the first and the third what was your second different gaps um that are that would require desert voices to fulfill and the third is if we the contract is not renewed and we get a referral for a specific student that needs those voices can we quickly move forward to renew that contract to make sure that so as far as any gaps okay i apologize i'm sorry um as far as any gaps and services um again that's a very philosophical question people would argue with me that no we don't have what desert voices has but when we look at the research and um and and what works for kids not what we think works but what is shown with research to work that the environment we're providing with both both asl opportunities in just an asl environment and then opportunities in spoken language both completely driven by each child's individualized education plan yes we offer the same instruction that desert voices offers let me repeat what i said at our last board meeting desert voice is phenomenal they have a great program they do amazing things this has nothing to do with the quality of their program or what they offer and we still and have and and plan to continue to have a very good working relationship with them when you have a low incident disability if you divide that's never going to be good for kids we have to support each other we have to make sure our birth to three families know that desert voices is an option come preschool we tell all our families that just like we tell them deaf mentors are available that's our job to be a hundred percent impartial and to let families know about everything that's available so no we there wouldn't be a gap in services although again you could hear some people argue that i just want to be transparent second um you had asked about if a child was referred could we still send them there not without the contract if we don't have a contract then it's the child the district's responsibility if an iep team in a district decides that the lre for a child is desert voices they bear the responsibility as the lea to send the child there no matter how they have to figure that out um and there i will tell you one of the ethical issues that i have personally when i sit at these meetings is there are districts that are and i'm not speaking to any one district but um this is just reality because the vouchers available they'll send them there but if it wasn't that's not what the the the iep team has determined that it's not the lre and in district is but because the parents want it then they say okay you can go and i'm all for parent choice as well but the iep process is it works when all the right people are at the table and parents have rights and you know the spirit of idea the iep process these contracts erode that to a degree and i won't go down that road right now but it is something i want you to put in the back of your minds and might be worth discussing later on down the road um thank you dr benedict um pb president nigro did you have more comments or questions i do have additional questions that i want to make sure that you have an opportunity to speak uh you can go ahead i i have some comments as well but uh you can go ahead and ask further thank you um yeah i just wanted to let you ask as well um wanted to follow up with dr benedict to clarify what she was saying about philosophies aside from a service perspective and an educational perspective can asdb provide the services that desert voices provide and it appears you said yes i just want to double clarify that you're saying at this point desert voices will be considered a dual service when we can provide the services in-house correct you're on mute all right indication of services just to clarify duplication of services if we continue would be considered duplication of services right um with our recent lea status in the past i would have said no because we aren't like a local school district but since we are now my logic follows that yeah it would be seen like a duplication of services why are we in fact ade has said as much to me that essentially what we're doing is the district is placing the child with us we're it's just like the child's a resident of our district and now we are privately placing them at a program that we have that we have so yes if you follow that line of thinking yes i'm not a judge okay so is that a legal issue or concern that we should be consulting with the ag in regards to with the new lea status i'll let lieutenant reichman perhaps speak to that um that's an interesting question it's not that's the simple answer um pb are you uh finished with your questioning for now just a couple more please bear with me so if the contract is not renewed and the student or parents are wanting desert voices based on the iep's team's decision and in that process parents still have the ability to choose desert voices just does that mean that asdb no longer is in the middle we are no longer the middle organization yes okay and so i think i'm going to hold my second question after president nigel's comment uh thank you pb uh dr bennett if you said that um we can provide uh the same services as desert voices aside from the fact of the you know where the instructions delivered set that aside in the email that superintendent rightman sent us on may 18 to the entire board she indicated that zero of the preschool teachers zero were certified in lsl zero is that is that correct uh you're on mute dr certified with listening to spoken language national certification correct we have teachers that have all gone through um our our five cohorts of listening spoken language with kathryn kreimer which is continuing next year we also have a new teacher coming over whose expertise is in listening a spoken language and i will tell you that they're um i i don't want to speak for sure but i last i checked there was one certified lsl teacher at desert voices and others working toward it just like we have so it's pretty equivalent so there is one i i was under the impression that they were more um maybe that's changed over time um we've had a lot of turnover yeah i was in the person there were more certified teachers that we have none at this point and and from that email we're more than a year from even hoping to get the earliest one that would that we would get would be in june of 2023 uh correct right and those are birth to three teachers who work with our preschool teachers and um will continue to support that process um we even have our lsl certified individual that's down in tucson she supports the entire elp program she was even supporting the co-op this last year in yuma working with those teachers whose students they were serving in the public schools used listening and spoken language okay so there are there are some differences uh uh dean i see that you had your hand up yeah i was gonna let you finish this is dean before i had the follow-up question of that comment dr benedict just said so so desert voices does not have teachers or did i hear there was only one teacher that is certified in lsl so they're all certified teachers of the deaf um but and again i don't want to mistake so i would have to get that that information from um deanne chapman but okay i know in the past recent past that i was aware of um their their head of educational programs who just left she um did not have her lsl certification she was working toward it um and again there's been a lot of turnover there so i i don't know but i don't know i do know they're not fully staffed with lsm people no okay because i i just had remembered hearing something again that their their teachers um have masters listen to spoken language not best studies but i don't even know if that compares because we're where my head's going right now is i'm trying to figure out what's an apple and what's an orange comparison of all this and i'm i'm you know the dumb guy in the room trying to understand all these acronyms and everything's going on you know so bear with me that's kind of what i had heard as far as what's going on on desert voices on the lsl side no you're fine dean and and as a matter of fact i mean that's you were not the dumb guy in the room and as a parent you've been through this and you know and um you know um there are programs uh master's programs that emphasize asl or a bilingual approach there are master's programs that emphasize the lich steam spoken language approach the recruiting that barb shrek did a number of years ago before i came she got a lot of teachers out of utah and they all come to us with um experience just like you're referring to some of the teachers that desert voices likely whose programs we're in listening in spoken language and in working with infants and toddlers so we are we have a lot of that in birth to three now we don't have as much um on the asl side in birth to three um that's why we work very closely with the deaf mentor so you know we're not perfectly it's hard to be all things to all people so we have these partnerships in-house and and externally um to make sure that we can provide and i know that you no one here knows me more than you've seen me speak a few times in the last three years but i can tell you that anyone that knows me and having been in this for almost 30 years that i would never take an opportunity away from a child to go somewhere and if i thought this contract was going to make that happen they're not renewing it i never would have been a part of this decision and i know that's you just have to take that as face value but i felt i needed to say it uh thank you dr benedict so i think we're hearing is that the although the agency's lsl capabilities are much improved over you know several years ago they they aren't the same um and it's that you know desert voices is another option um even though that there is you know they're both lsl or lsl like uh they're they're not depleted and i'm not sure if did you want a response was there a question yeah yeah that was that was the question i mean i think that what we've we've seen is that they're they're they don't exactly overlap uh one and we will talk about even if they did uh because there's another there's another component to this discussion but while we're talking about the substance of the programs that are offered we have an option we have two options as opposed to just one right now or or we did before this issue what i what i'm tv i see your hand just really quick if i can respond to what um president nigro just said one thing i would really encourage everyone here to do is come august please come to our preschool programs please go to tucson and please come to the ptsd campus and go to desert voices they would welcome you there and go and see what's happening and make your own decisions most certainly we welcome anybody anytime to walk through our programs this last year for both desert voices and us was extremely difficult in regards to staff desert voices had to start turning kids away because they didn't have enough staff either we operated with minimal minimal staff at times and they made it through the teachers the kids and we're looking forward to a year you know a year coming up here that's not laden with covid impact and and you know hopefully being fully staffed and we're just on the precipice of just taking off and we've got the people to do it and the people in place and if you go and you watch what they do there and you go when you watch what we do here and you still at the end of the day feel like this isn't okay then let us know please uh thank you i did observe the class uh when they had the the three different classes a couple of maybe three years ago in 2018 or 2019 um but i haven't been uh in the last year or so um before we move on to the second part of this discussion um tv did you have another question yes i did thank you president micro a side comment i can guarantee you that uh you're not the stupidest person dean just to add to that if it would be it would be me because i'm the one with tons of questions here to ask so i'm really trying to understand the whole picture the full scope and get a crash course on the basics right so i really do appreciate everyone's patience in my inquisitive nature to really understand based off of my reading material and the discussions that we are having here and the other board members your opinions and thoughts i really do take that so my primary concern is that i want to have all the necessary information i need to make a confident decision with whatever decision we are making to move forward in the best interest of the students and to make it clear i really don't care if it's an asl or an lsl total communication my main point is what is best for that particular student for them to thrive and for them to become successful so that they can be productive members of society working and to be able to contribute back to society that is my end goal that is my focus so i just wanted to make sure that we do this right because this can potentially impact have a longer impact in the long term so i think it's interesting uh there's an interesting question in regards to lsl certification that has come up now it seems that there's a limited certification pool but there is education and experience to back that up so now my perspective is how many of those teachers at asdb whether it's campus choose some ptsd how many of those teachers actually have asl certification do you mean have they passed the aslpi is that what you would refer to or any sort of asl specific certification if we're going to focus on lsl certification are we doing the comparative no no there's none no it's a problem we have teachers that have tried to take the aslpi in an effort to be able to administer the vcsl um but to date um we've we don't have anyone that's in a position to be able to learn to do the vcsl um we have some very fluent people um i don't know if you've met our supervisor for the preschool ptsd he has done some tremendous things with that preschool and it is by and large a is a bilingual environment there we have half of the staff um you asked if there are certified asl teachers no but half i'd say almost half the staff are deaf um and native signers so we do have um that as well um but no there's no asl type of certification that anyone has i appreciate that response kendra and the reason i ask is because as the only deaf person in the board today and growing up signing or not signing i don't think that we can do a distinct comparison because we need to fully understand what it's like to teach language appropriately with the grammar appropriate processes appropriate rules and structure of a language etc so i just wanted to make sure that we're being equitable when we're talking about certification and expectations for one that has lsl background for listening spoken language we should be monitoring that as well for those that teach asl for our young birth to three and in addition to that i just wanted to make sure that we're also recognizing and i'm really i'm curious with the question the question with the contract for desert voices if we were to provide our services in-house can we tell desert voices what we would like or what we would require for their certifications or are we i guess best more easily able to keep our certification requirements in-house if we are servicing for contracts um you could write anything into a contract as long as both parties agree and the state procurement office says that it's all right to put in in the contract um and i would have to look but the contract was three years ago and people that are there now aren't the same people but there is a a website and i will look up the link and all i'll be i can share it with everyone you can see who ever who in the state of arizona or anywhere has lsl certification it's public information so you you can we can look that up anytime and we can see that um and again i know they have their own in-house training we have our own in-house training um one thing i wanted to to speak to petey and i don't know if that answers your question but when you mention the lsl certification and the asl certification one thing that i i we need to get away from i feel strongly about is saying asl and lsl in the same sentence asl is a language lsl is an approach to teaching children who are deaf how to listen and speak it is a it is a theoretical model that in practice has shown to have great outcomes with kids but they aren't comparable asl is a language lsl is a way to teach spoken language spoken english um i think that's important to remember sometimes did i answer your second question though yes thank you dr benedict i completely understand with what you're saying a language versus an instructional model or approach i totally get your intention and i guess my intention was to make sure that whatever we are providing whether it's an lsl approach or for providing an asl as a language instructional model approach that we are equitable and that's definitely one of our our points as a support is to make sure that we are being equitable and if we just to go back a little bit our current contract does require that does your voices stop become lsl certified no okay so but we are requiring our staff in-house to be lsl certified right that's not written in policy anywhere no okay so then when what is the hiring requirement for lsl instructors for asdb versus to those that are hired at desert voices so interestingly most of our teachers come from programs that similar to the one i came from 30 years ago that was very generalist in nature you learned about all of the approaches and then after you got out of school and settled into your job you started to specialize in something and so we have a very diverse group of teachers with expertise um and experience and background in in teaching through a bilingual bimodal method teaching through listening and spoken language methods um and i can get those exact i can i can list the staff and put all their experience there for you that might be good information for the board to have i'd be happy to do that um and then you could really sit and look and and compare and i can get those from desert voices too again it's public information um you can look up on ade's website what everyone's certification is whether it's early childhood special education it's all public information and i'd be happy to gather that for you thank you thank you um dr bennett i do want to talk about the financial aspect of this again uh superintendent rickman mentioned that she didn't feel it was uh in the best interest of uh best use of public money so i do want to talk about that um i did mention earlier the numbers uh that were again presented just in january um discount of full-time placement uh 23 783 that's what uh asdb pays the desert voices asd or death voices uh their actual cost the cost that they would charge a district is 33 975.

usually there's no math at these meetings but but there it is um our cost per student just in classroom spending is 32 540. so even if you took away the administrative overhead that causes that number to go up to four over forty thousand dollars if you took away all of that which you shouldn't because we're still spending that we're still at 32 540 which is a bigger number than 23 000 so i i if someone could help explain and and by the way cost desert voices the 33 0985 to provide those services they're going out and fundraising that from the community and educating our students with that private money so i want to i want someone to explain whether it's doctor bendix or is cooper or whoever i want someone to explain how it's a poor use of our funds to say we can we have these capabilities in-house let's keep them on our campus even though those services aren't equivalent as we've discussed and we're going to spend 40 thousand dollars per student as opposed to just 23 thousand dollars through the placement of those this is annette reichman i'm gonna ask assistant superintendent shayna cooper to respond to that because it's not twenty three thousand dollars per student versus forty thousand dollars per student but let's let's have assistant superintendent cooper uh really go through and explain the numbers that way we're all we can have a better understanding of what it means well when we look at the average cost per student uh superintendent reichman desert voices present uh the board in january and gave a slide that had that number on there which is about what the voucher amount is are you saying that number's not accurate that that that it's not that tuition is not 23 783 president nigro that doesn't include transportation and additional costs so i will turn it over to assistant superintendent cooper to explain more and i i understand it doesn't include tuition and other costs as we explained which we'd incur anyway but miss cooper you can you can speak to that but the number is 23 if i just want you to tell me first is that is that tuition number not twenty three thousand seven hundred eighty dollars not correct okay i grew back in february um we issued an amendment to desert voices i realized in reviewing the contract that the voucher rate that we had in an increase back in july we had agreed two three years ago when we entered into the contract that there would be no increase or decrease no difference in what the annual voucher amount was in reviewing the dollar amount desert voices was not billing us enough to agree to exactly what the annual voucher amount was that we were receiving from ade so i issued an amendment back in february to now where that amount equals 25 488 dollars which is now 141.60 which is exactly comparable to what the voucher amount is with ade so that it's a complete wash now right so so it's more okay so since january that number's changed but it's changed in an amount because the voucher changed so we're still passing along a hundred percent of the voucher today that is correct so the difference in terms of the 33 seventy five that they um pre the discount from what desert voices is giving us is a little less than an eighty five hundred dollar difference not the ten thousand dollar difference and you are correct in the fact that we can't necessarily compare apples to oranges in that yes the forty thousand dollars when you take a look at it does include the agency administration the transportation it would also include any facility related um components as well so the overhead should i say the non-classroom the non-instructional base now when you just focus on the instructional base and as you refer to it is more comparable to the 32 or 33 000 that desert voices is billing us but keep in mind that we are operating as an agency where we're running a brick and mortar whereas desert voices is not so yes it is i mean you're 100 accurate in the fact that we're passing you know there is no difference between what they're billing us versus what um the contract is and yes it is costing us more when you take in consideration all of the other additional costs that we're having to already incur whether or not we were an lea or not right now the the transportation again i i mean that's listed out as a line item yeah on that report for for preschool it was 8 700 i mean it was not much uh on that report that's that's in you know i hear this before this meeting it's 8 700 for the entire preschool um 96 children um so it's it's it's not that much i know that the overhead i mean the overhead we talked about the administrator over it i still think we spent forty thousand dollars um and even if you were to discount that and somehow imagine that we didn't spend the extra eight thousand to get four thousand um we're still at 32 540 which is a a higher number than 25 um and and 40 is a larger number than all of them so you know can you and again we've all agreed that transportation and ot and tt all ancillary services we're responsible for either way um but when the children come go to desert voices we pay them 25 000 a year about and when they come here we end up paying them just for the just for the instruction for the class of instruction we end up paying our you know costing the agency 32 540 um and then overall including the administration 40 000 so so how is it a poor use of resources to spend far more first cost per student by educating them in-house than doing it at a at the private in the private sector um president elijah do you want me to answer that question before i know i i mean it's a real question i'm not answering it i mean that's a real question you're telling us that it's not a good we're being told that it's not a good use of state resources uh to get to to send folks to these children to desert voices right but when we look at the dollars expended we're paying for thousands and thousands of dollars more uh like fifteen thousand dollars more to educate them in-house and if we could do it better and we could show that i mean that's one thing that doesn't matter but i i i have a hard time being told that we're wasting money by privately placing a dozen voices when it costs far more to do it in-house well i do want to clarify that if the number of students were to increase then the revenue would be higher than what the cost per student is and again we're talking about two to three students also when we're talking about resources we're not just talking about fiscal we're talking about the time the money the dollars the people we're talking about all agency resources so to focus just on the fiscal component to me would not be an accurate assumption to make when we're focusing on that and so i can't argue the case if we were to just to solely focus on fiscal are you incorrect no you're not wrong in that aspect when you look at the dollars again i've always said the data does not lie but you also have to take into consideration we're only talking about 96 students when we're looking at the preschool numbers and again if that number were to increase it would be a little bit higher so again and we also have to focus on classroom versus non-classroom spend so again you are accurate in that respect i'm i'm glad that i i'm able to do greater than a lesson um but and you're right there are other agency resources that are not incurred when the students go to this voices right um they're just not incurred uh you know they're on a different campus um and the agency doesn't have to expend uh resources in terms of time of of ftes to service those children um but they do if they were on campus for other you know for other purposes so you know again not not just the the the fiscal part of it but the time expended is all less um i mean by placing them at desert voices desert forces is going out and raising that difference between their actual cost which is closer to 34 000 from the community and they're using that to educate our children and saving the state money now i mean we currently only send three children there and again and let's not forget that they're gonna be three children whose presence there is going to be jeopardized by this decision but from a fiscal perspective it just doesn't make any sense to not if a child is is indicated to go there and that's the appropriate environment for that child it doesn't make any sense for us not to have this and by the way this contract if we sent no one we would incur no cost right we would incur zero costs we would send no no children there we wouldn't get the voucher money there'd be no money in and no money out um so if we renewed it and did and no one went there it wouldn't cost us any there'd be no resources expanded um so i know pb has his hand up uh and he can ask some questions then we go to dr benedict but my my point is it just it just seems if we're being told it's not fiscally sound that's just patently false i mean it's it's patently false um and and i i can't understand why we're being told that i don't recall anyone saying that we're not being financially sound when we're talking about the contract when we said resources we were talking about resources in general um so again i i agree with you wholeheartedly yes it is costing us more if we were to bring those services fiscally internally but again we would have to look at things holistically taking into consideration the programmatic the educational as well as the fiscal resources to operate the program as what dr benedict alluded to and that i would like to also add that we need to look at the student population dr benedict just stated that students at desert voices are working with students that are not similar to the demographics of students that we're working on the pdsb and tucson campuses they have different needs and some students with additional needs do cost more so again we will have to analyze more about the student populations and their needs and then connect the costs for students that way tv do you mind if i follow up really quick on what superintendent reichman just said thank you um thank you superintendent reichman i think that's an excellent point um and i also don't think we have enough information in regard to the fiscal information to be making general statements and coming to conclusions we did a thorough analysis of with fbc a number of months ago and it might behoove us to do that with desert voices if you're interested but there are so many pieces to this um i i can't even begin to explain between the contract between the institutional voucher process that's been changed to the lea status they all intertwine intermingle and i can describe this year as nothing more than a big quagmire fortunately our relationships with fbc and desert voices and districts are good and people have worked along with us and been patient as we have figured all of this out and student services have not been compromised and that's the most important thing thing to know um that i think is is very important and the other as far as the you know being good public stewards of money the the public's money i think there's also the question um to ask is it okay to direct public money to a private entity just food for thought i don't know i think legally it's okay obviously or we wouldn't be able to do it but i don't know if anyone i don't know if that's not something to consider i mean i mean charter schools exist they're not private they aren't private they're they're um they're they're funded by public and pv wants to ask a question but uh go ahead thank you i do want to emphasize again the importance of being equitable i don't have the ability to interrupt in american sign language or to intervene at the right point so i've been waiting patiently for my turn to make sure that i'm respectful to others so that they have their turn as well so i just want to make sure that we are acknowledging um equity for the board operation so miss cooper i'm trying to understand the fiscal aspect um assistant superintendent cooper and i would like to ask some clarification so the financial cost average cost per student for birth to three that we provide does that include the contractual costs of what we're paying to desert voices and i have a follow-up question to that response if you're referring to the preschool contract yes they are included in the instruction line under the classroom spend when you take a look at it yes it is included in the average cost per student and as superintendent reichman had referenced this average cost per student is just a straight formula calculation it's taking total expenditures whether they're classroom or non-classroom spend dividing it by number of students as i've mentioned before more specifically at the last work study session in order for us to get a true picture of what our cost per student is we would need to look at the population or the disability category of each of our individual students to determine what those more appropriate or more accurate costs would be for the different classifications of our students again this is something that we've traditionally provided even before i started it's just a straight formula um based on those calculations and again if we needed to take a more deeper dive to figure out what those true costs are similar to what we did to fbc a couple of months ago i can work with the team as dr benedict referenced to figure out what those costs are since we're only talking about three students in terms of trying to figure out what those costs are in comparison to the 34 000 before the fundraising costs are calculated when looking at the desert voices contract okay i think thank you for helping me clarify that okay so we know that we have specific costs that we have to pay for staff and for resources available for the campuses for the programs and curriculums etc i know that we pay those class regardless of what we do what i want to understand is is there a fixed cost for those students that are receiving services in-house if yes then if we contract out does that cost per student absorb what we're paying in those contract services or if we're contacting out is there an additional cost because we're already providing the services in-house is that clear yes your question is clear and that's what dr benedict and i just referenced we have not taken that deeper dive into determining what the true costs are for the desert um the desert voices preschool students other than determining the straight formula of average cost per student and we can do that if the board requests or likes for us to do to provide additional clarification to determine if those fixed costs or those costs for those students based on their disability categories would exceed or not exceed what it cost for desert voices if we were to contract those services out we did not do that deep dive and have not okay just another follow-up and then i'll hand it back over to you president micro um so from what i understand that you just said is we have an agency that actually has fixed costs we just don't know what that cost is and on the other hand we don't know if desert voices is charging additionally because there are [Music] contracting out additional resources for resources that we already have in-house i'm not quite sure dr benedict would probably know the answer to that latter part of the question in terms of what additional services that desert voices may be contracting out um that they may not be able to provide themselves i'm i'm not quite sure okay let me clarify the question so we have fixed costs for in-house services and we know that we know we have to pay those are resources that we are already paying for right yes that's correct so if we contract out services is that considered an additional cost on top of the fixed costs that we're already paying i would not think so because the other fixed costs that i'm aware of would be those other related services as dr benedict mentioned the psychology services any nursing services any ot services the transportation i'm not aware of any other costs that would be above and beyond what we would be required to pay to desert voices so that would be incorporated in the fixed cost calculations um if we were to take a look at it okay thank you that was my point i think you the answer is yes because that means we are paying for those services in-house already and then in addition to that fixed cost we are paying that 24 000 per student to attend desert voices correct correct correct so what you're saying is technically we are not paying more for in-house services we are taking advantage of additional resources and we are paying outs rather than using our internal resources um again i would feel more comfortable answering that question once we if once we take a look at the numbers to determine all of the ancillary costs to provide these services for that student to determine whether or not that statement is correct on the surface it sounds like the answer would be yes however again i would prefer to look at the data to confirm that statement okay fair enough i appreciate that answer now i'm wondering from a lea status if we were to accept student referrals and we offered desert voices as an option and desert voices does not offer some of the resources that we do provide as an lea we are still responsible for covering those additional costs correct correct and so as a counter argument if the school district iep team decides that they are sending the student to desert voices themselves directly who was then responsible for those additional costs kendra's sending the school district okay so that means in my view we should be considering the school district as the potential benefit because of what we're servicing now as an lea which means that we have a legal obligation in my opinion to make sure that we are providing services that we can provide and if the school district or the parents feel that asdb cannot meet that need then they should be able to go straight to what it is that needs that meets that need for that child instead of having to go through a second or third group is what i'm understanding is happening now with our current contract correct that's my understanding yes and but miss cooper that's not really correct right um and it's not correct for for two reasons um the first reason is the the the when we're uh the underlying school district has to privately place uh at desert voices again for that higher rate the full the full freight rate of 33 975 they're not paying 25 000 like we are they don't have the discounted rate like we are so the la has to pay substantially more to desert voices than than we are uh that's that's the first part the second part of it is the my understanding is the lease um voucher the lease voucher for that child and preschool is only half the amount because the state pays for half of a preschool but our institutional voucher is the full amount the amount that they would get had that were they in kindergarten um so the the the other lea their their home school district is going to have far less resources far fewer resources half of the 25 000 uh whereas we have the full 25 000 and we just pass it on to uh uh to desert voices so i mean that's that's that's where we are and the other point while while we're here the fixed cost our breakdown of is is is really good um that you provided ms cooper because we don't have anything charged for facilities or dorms uh or food services for preschool the only after classroom instruction the only add-ons we have is 87.98 8 798 for for facility charges i'm sorry for transportation charges and 33 seven dollars for agency administration that includes hrit but not the overall agency administration uh charge which brings us up to which is six hundred and eighty one thousand dollars so in terms of the fixed costs they're you know they're all there and outlined in that in that calculation this this is the the data where we that we run the agency from right i mean that's why we have this data that's why we have a strategic plan for you to make these things so in any event uh what i'm saying you know what my point is the the school district the even though the child can go back these three families can go back to their school district their school district is going to be getting far fewer resources than than we do they're going to be paying desert voices far more and that might not work out for that child it is not at all clear that those three children are going to end up at desert voices next year because of this decision [Music] i did just want to clarify again the the calculations is just an average cost taking all expenditures divided by total number of students and in order to get a truer picture we would need to look at the individual costs by the various categories and again um as dr benedict had mentioned it should not be the decision should not be solely focused on what funding or resources asdb can or cannot provide um and i'll leave it there in order for dr benedict to provide her response then i think we can turn it over to pv okay thank you thank you pb um two points i wanted to make that i think are critical to this discussion um that that if we do take a deeper dive into this down the road we should consider one if you're if a child is considering placement in our program or desert voices program because we offer something similar we lose that student to desert voices we lose a voucher that voucher translates into revenue for us and assistant superintendent cooper and i last year spent an extensive amount of time determining how many vouchered students justify the hiring of a new teacher and that might be data that you would be interested in because if we lose students then we that's that that's going to play an impact here i don't know what it is i haven't dove into it but that's that's revenue lost for us for a teacher we already had let's say we have a class we have room for two or three more kids we lose that voucher money there's that i'm sorry how are we losing voucher money if we're getting desert voices and pb really wants to speak so you can let him speak yes i'm sorry president and i grow right i mean just to clarify again i mean if we want to continue discussions i would definitely uh lead to you if you feel that you would like to add to any comments we just want to make sure we have equitable communication so if you want to step in just let me know it's definitely happy to yield to you yeah it's it's fine tv you can go ahead so dr benedict are you can i let you continue the only other thing i wanted to say is that districts the financial resources they have to send these students to private schools recall that for each child that has a disability category they are they receive funding just like we do there are deaf students who have interpreters there are deaf students that don't require hardly anything and they get the same amount of money for each of those students and they could have thousands of students these are big districts so when you're talking about big districts with thousands of students receiving money that some of the kids don't need because they have minimal service they're they have many more pots of which they can support these private placements and it's less costly for them to do that than to sometimes build an in-house program that's another thing i think that's important to consider here well dr benedict i mean we've we've just been through this i mean it's it's it's it is more costly for them right we have a contract with desert voices that's heavily discounted about 8 500 uh from what they were charged districts now i know the districts have other money we all know how the capitated payments work but at the end of the day it's going to cost districts 8 500 more than it would cost us and that's not even counting that's not even factoring in the that they get lots of voucher money then then we do this is this is an easy yo this system this contract is an easy low-cost way to place students into does into desert voices in this case and leverage the generosity of the community for the difference i mean that that's that's what we're talking about either way it's costing it's cause it's gonna cost the district more and their taxpayer base more or it's gonna cost us you know uh you know the agency more to do it to do it in-house i mean that's we've just been through this there's no disagreement although the facts of the numbers are not in dispute um so you know again i think we've we've talked about the cost uh and the financial aspect of it and we've talked about the the differences in services um and that's that's where we you know that's where we are now so pb unless you have any other questions we can kind of sum up and move on to the next topic yes so i would like to clarify now i would disagree with that the facts aren't actually clear i'm still struggling to understand the actual numbers because it appears that we're still missing the data that we need more information together from assistant superintendent cooper for the actual cost for birth to three in comparison to desert voices services and the other thing i'm trying to understand is it well it was my understanding when i joined the board that the board was ordered to for asdb to to establish an lsl programming in-house and so the preferred method is now to contract for those services through desert voices my question and my challenge i guess from a fiscal perspective does that make sense to go ahead and pay for lsl's staff at this point if we have those classes or that training that we would provide in-house versus contracting out to desert voices maybe we would contract and continue that contract with desert voices and then close out the lsl programming at asdb because from what i'm saying we're paying for those other cell services in-house including the training and we're also contracting out to desert voices at the same time why would we spend on both that's what i don't understand so i'm trying to get down to that if desert voices can do a better job then great let's take on that opportunity in the best interest of the students i'm in full support of that if we could do a better job in-house and it's more effective use of our resources then release the contract i'm also in favor of that entirely but at the end of the day it's not clear to me that we i don't feel we have the facts it's a little bit of ambiguity there's a little bit of muddied water here and i don't understand why this keeps coming up is there a cost that does your voices charges to public school districts and why is that our problem what they charge and why is that our our concern for school districts when they com they're the ones who said oh well now that you're the least tb you're now in charge for transportation as well but they didn't give us that same consideration so i feel like we have to be fair in our choices in our understanding and how we are using our resources appropriately so if we are paying for both which i feel is a duplication of services internally and externally i don't think that is a reasonable use of our fiscal resources and i think we need to gather more information as far as what is exactly going on and if that student or the parents do decide to go to desert voices and desert voices was charging that school district more than what they would charge us again that's not our problem that's desert voices problem and that's the school district problem that is their issue why they don't give a discount to those school districts from that standpoint i don't know and so i would be curious to know why not and why they're not providing that same discount uh tv we we have all the information we need and we had it at the start of this meeting there's nothing else that we need more to be to uh i mean one is whether or not we even have a decision to make i mean we could talk about it it's not an action i can't do that on this item uh here um but we have everything that we need um it is our problem that that uh desert voices will charge the uh the lea more the local school district more because that means that the student may not get to go there and the student may be placed in a different setting than what they were expecting at least these three uh and and that's that's an issue um and why is why does desert voices charge that because that's a real cost uh teacher teacher um and labor costs have been up quite a bit in the last several years costs have gone up quite quite dramatically and that's the real cost uh this contract was done a number of years ago um and that's the that's the cost that we have on this contract so we're we're happy that we're able to leverage we should be happy that we're able to leverage the generosity of the community to help educate our children um but it is our problem because those children won't get served and you know that that bothers me that's why i'm on this board because i want to see children have options i want some parents have options i want to see these families have options and i want to see if they're appropriately educated we have lsl uh distance voices is not the right choice for everyone that's why we have them but they are the right choice for some that's why we have them as an option and it costs us nothing uh it's again those costs of the transportation of ancillary services we bear that cost whether they're on our campus or they're somewhere else uh that's that that's the fact of it um we it costs us far more and again you take a look at our uh at our own data that we have and that we produce we run the agency on and that data shows us that it costs us far more to produce this you know this education now i believe we have more lsl students on our campuses and that's that's great i'm happy to see that we've improved those offerings i i really am i think dr benedict's done a great job uh in the last few years building up those resources and really changing that program she's done a lot of what we've asked her to do and i'm proud of that program but if they're if there are children and there are families where desert voices are the right place to go it seems to me that at an option that cost us nothing that we should still have pv well the fact that it costs us nothing to provide services for students to go to desert voices but if we were not the lea it would be the cost of that school district not ours so that means it would become an additional cost considering our new lea status and i don't think it's appropriate to quote the data we have because it's from that shows numbers that were antiquated pre-lea for birth to three and i think i was seeing this point that that information is for the average cost of all students we need to break it down more to see what's going on especially when we bring the lea responsibility into the picture if we were not an lea then we would not be absorbing the cost the school district would be absorbing the cost just like they view us as an lea we are responsible for those transportation costs we have accepted that responsibility and we're paying those costs so if the school district says desert voices is the best placement they should be absorbing that cost and that includes resources and buildings and the things we're already providing so that means that the student goes to a different lea and we have to use our response our resources with our students and our ethical legal responsibility is to answer to our agency to provide instruction and our resources to our students and not absorb the cost for other school districts who won't or can't provide those services and when we offer those districts a conference a contract directly with us and they want to use our services that's great pay us and we will provide those services for those students if they want to go through desert voices then they should go direct to desert voices and again i clearly support what is best for the students if we are paying for those dual services is that a best use of our resources i think it just from a basic standpoint it does not make sense and we need more information just making a statement saying we know that's not going to cost us money is not a good statement to make um i know we do need to take a break for the interpreters then we can come back uh and move on um you know but to be very clear uh the lea status has no bearing on this discussion none at all um prior to the lea status the transportation was paid by the local school districts now that's on us and that's on us either way whether they come to campus or they go to desert voices or wherever they go that transportation's on us because we're an lea now that's the same for every student and it's not duplicating services we have children that we're serving in the lsl classrooms on on campus it's not a duplicate it's another option uh and it doesn't cost us any money you have to understand that when we get those children in when those districts voucher those students to us we get more money from ade than they do we get twice as much uh that's that's the way the voucher works so we get more money and then we pay that money to desert voices it nets out to zero um but it's very clear how the money works um and that's there's really no no debate about that anyway we're going to take a 10 minute break uh for the interpreters we're going to come back at 5 50 and then we're going to we're going to finish up thank you all right uh it is now 5 50 and we are back um so just finish up we were on 2.01 information discussion item i think we've had the discussion that we're going to have unless there are any other board members that want to comment on this and there are i don't see any uh so from here again we're uh you know the situation is unless the superintendent changes course uh we're stranding three families uh for next year um and we're ending a contract that is not going to be easily replaced uh we'd have to go out rebid it that took a year last time uh again a contract that costs us nothing if we have no one um and that's that's where we are unless the superintendent reconsiders so uh we can move on now to 2.02 discussion and possible action item policy change to give the board soul authority to terminate slash non-renewed contracts with service providers that directly serve asdb students and this one i know it says maria murphy but i'll i'll take it from here uh miss murphy um so just to give the board some context uh you know stranding this is this is not the first time we dealt with the superintendent stranding kids for services um on short notice uh or at least attempting to a few years ago in 2018 um they were the superintendent was dealing with an issue up in flagstaff uh and the superintendent um informed them that that she had intended to terminate their uh the iga uh and strand 39 children 39 families without services the board heard of this and uh the board acted in early 2019 uh to change policy lb to add where the agency is a party to an intergovernmental agreement iga that provides a right of unilateral termination the astp board must act to provide approval prior to the agency i'm sorry mr niagara president nigro this is the interpreter you're reading that really sorry if you wouldn't mind slowing down a little bit i want to make sure i include that in the interpretation thank you sure uh where i'll i'll say more slowly where the agency is a party to an intergovernmental agreement iga that provides a right of unilateral termination the asd board must act to provide approval prior to the agency exercising such a right the asdb board may call a special meeting for the purposes of taking such action so that policy was put in in direct response to that situation because the board felt at the time that we did not want the superintendent to have the authority to strand children without services without some sort of continuity plan we we understand sometimes from time to time contracts need to be terminated or not renewed that may happen but if it does the utmost importance of the agency is is to make sure the children get a continuity of services and that there's some phase out period when asdb can phase out their services and some other provider can phase in and the child's education is not affected that again was very important to the board at the time uh and we wanted to take that power back uh it looks like here there is a loophole that needs to be closed the situation here is a third party provider that's not a school district so there's no iga so that policy lb that change that we made a few years ago to prevent this precise thing uh did not apply uh because of the technicality that we were not dealing with the school district were dealing with a nonprofit so to further that intent of the board a few years ago and seeing that this has happened again it's proposed that we add very similar language to refer to third parties that directly deliver services to children on behalf of asdb so if a child is being directly served by a third party provider with this proposed policy the board needs to approve that termination or non-renewal and that's so that the board can be certain that it's done in a manner that serves that child fully that allows the transition to happen and make sure that that child's education isn't hurt because of some administrative or bureaucratic squabble are there any comments on this ms murphy do you have anything to add i guess before we take comments from the board um not at this time president nigro um i'd be happy to answer any questions if there are any questions but no i i think that's an accurate restatement of the history all right uh thank you ms murphy are there any board members that would like to comment on this uh pv oh let's um brittany go ahead and comment okay brittany thank you pv i appreciate that i just wanted to it's not a comment about exactly what's going on i just feel like we're using incredibly polarizing language when we're talking when we're saying um stranding students um from listening to this whole thing it sounds like students still completely have a choice families still completely have a choice it's just we're discussing the vehicle on how that is exercised so i don't feel whatever decision that we're making is going to be stranding anybody and i'd really appreciate if maybe we kind of moved more towards some neutral language especially since this has been kind of a heated discussion uh your point taken uh is taking brittany um you know potential disruption of services how about we say that i think that sounds maybe a little better thank you okay uh pv thank you okay i'm trying to understand not just the history but also the potential impacts of this policy change my experience working for this state is i understand that the state procurement law and procurement procedures are not easy to understand and my concern is if we as a board absorb that responsibility what is the legal and contractual obligation of the board that we may not be aware of and one other thing we do have a list of questions here i want to make sure that we address my greatest concern right now that i'm noticing is that this service and policy would impact students and families directly um but i'm looking on the agenda and i don't see any opportunity for public comments and i'm concerned that we as a board are making this kind of decision without public comments reviewing board policy it does say that the board shall be open to public comments and that's not on the agenda so does that mean we're not follow following the policy that we set to ensure that we have the opportunity for public to comment what if the public does have a comment on this issue and currently on the agenda we are not allowing for public comments and that's a concern i have i want to make sure that we're giving the public an opportunity to participate in this decision process with we need their input as we discuss to make this decision i also have a concern in regards to policy change for our legal status when you look at b b section b b specifically states that we have legal status in order to carry out the will of the people we are not elected officials but we are government appointed to act in the best interests of the state and the people we represent most importantly are the deaf hard of hearing blind visually impaired students who deserve to have the opportunities to have their representatives heard and if we're not allowing for public comments it feels as though we're not doing our due diligence to make sure that they have the opportunity to participate which would be in potential violation of policy bb and in relationship to bb we have another policy in section bba which specifically states that we have public we need to allow public comments as i previously stated also it mentions the impact on section b-e-d-h that says shall have public comments as well um sorry excuse me cdb policy specifically states that we shall allow for and meet and look into discussion of each item of business that this is the superintendent's responsibility that makes that insurance we have complete transparency and i'm hearing from the leadership team stating that there is not enough information to provide to the board and i still have questions that have not been answered and cannot be answered without additional research and data i want to make sure that we acknowledge that we have that responsibility under bdb that we have all the information that is necessary reviewing my notes and my understanding is with bdd that we as a board establish a policy that the superintendent is to follow and execute those policies that we have established what i don't understand is if this was an issue previously why was that not addressed then and i'm puzzled at the use of the word loophole when the language within the policy clearly states that we set the policy and the supreme superintendent executes those policies another part of the superintendent's responsibility states that they are responsibility for facilitating the daily runnings of the agency and they can delegate those operations as necessary to their employees so if we are to change the policy that means we are pulling all of that authority all of that responsibility to our level that's a question and if the answer is yes then how many times do we need to come back and revisit the policy state procurement law state procurement procedures for not renewal of contracts and what do we do if we can't meet in a timely manner and we're missing those contract dates are we stuck with that contract are we as a board responsible for absorbing those costs will that hurt students if we cannot meet in time to ensure that that contract has attention to it but it's necessary because we've taken all the authority to the board level and if that issue is considered a loophole then i'm wondering does that mean we're saying as a board from a philosophical perspective that we don't trust the superintendent to run the daily business operations of the agency and that means that we need to take over the day-to-day operations of the agency i i want to be careful with the message that we're putting out there i feel like this is not transparent and we are violating different policies as i've already stated and i have concerns of the legal ramifications i have questions about the country the contracts and the impacts and we do not have an attorney general here we cannot go into an executive discussion or executive session to discuss with the attorney general so my question is are we jumping ahead way too fast i don't want us to get stuck in a legal situation where we are violating procurement rules and where we are stuck not needing enough time in order to handle these contractual issues uh maybe or can i respond to those that's that's quite a bit of things uh actually sorry we were just switching for the interpreter so there wasn't a natural pause there so in continuation i apologize for that so in continuation i just wanted to make sure that we are acknowledging that we have about 20 to 21 contracts related to direct student services and several of those contracts include temporary temp agencies for 101 services some of those contracts are also for transportation in emergency situations and also some of those contracts are in related to foreign language interpretation some i've also noticed are services that we contract out to provide additional support especially for preschool and for birth to three so if we were to absorb the authority for of those contracts at the board level how much harm are we causing to the student and the operation of administration if we do become the sole responsible entity without allowing the leadership team to do their um uh tv let me respond you you've you've gone on quite a bit there's a number of things that don't need to be addressed number one it's a special meeting we don't need to have public comment um that's that's fine the meeting was properly noticed uh in compliance with the open meeting laws we have a board email address anyone can email us we haven't gotten any emails that's that's one two to to think that this somehow uh with this language if you read it to think that this somehow means that we're now going to be engaged in the state procurement process is ridiculous and it's not what this policy says it says that the if the if the asdb is considering unilaterally terminating or failing to renew a contract the hdb war must vote to approve that's it it's just vote to approve when the administration wants to terminate a contract all the state procurement laws are going to be followed just like they are today there is nothing this is about about taking a specific executive decision power and having the board approve it as opposed to having the superintendent approve it uh on his or her own uh the state procurement laws are going to be followed just like they are today and there's not going to be any difference to the state procurement process than there is today this is just the decision of whether or not the the the executive decision of whether or not we're terminating or failing to renew a contract is going to vest with us we're not taking in all that responsibility that's that's a ridiculous reading of it uh that that is not what it says uh facially um there's no reason to have legal advice uh for that you know for this you know this particular policy now that said had any of the board members asked me in a timely manner to have the a.g here at the meeting i would have gladly said yes i was asked yesterday afternoon when it was too late uh to get her here because it had been within 24 hours uh if i'm asked in a timely manner i will change the agenda for anything um but in this case we you know we couldn't do it uh in terms of policy changes um we do have the first read policy to pass this today we'd have to waive that we can do that by board motion uh it's a it's one motion to wave and then and then another motion to adopt this um you're telling saying that we don't have data that is not what we talked about for the last hour and a half at all um there's no more data that we need to make this decision um but that's that's about desert voices this is closing a loophole what this is uh can you guys hear me okay i just froze for a minute this is closing a loophole what do i mean by a loophole a loophole where children can have their service providers or the school that they go to changed on short notice and not have a guarantee that they're going to be able to go to that school or have that service provider and you're right there are several there's around 20 of them uh and when they change we'll we'll have to prove it these these are contracts that goes on go on for years if the administration feels that they want to make a change or they want to do an rfp or whatever they want to do they can put it on the next agenda for the next meeting and we can approve it or not approve it just like we did for the igas we made the apology for policy for iga that doesn't mean that the iga agreements are any different the board approves all the igas anyway so that's that's where we are on this we're closing a loophole that makes sure that we're ensuring continuity of services uh for our children um and again anyone could have emailed us we didn't get that email i i you know the board didn't get any um and and it has nothing to do with uh uh taking responsibility for conducting the state procurement office or the state procurement procedures this has to do with with the authority to make the executive decision to terminate the contract that we already have thank you president nico and i do still have concerns and i recognize you have the law degree in the background experience and but at the end of the day i i want the consult with the ag and i can't commit to a board meeting you know i believe i believe yesterday or this morning so the fact that we don't have enough information i don't feel confident in making that decision so i do have some questions for miss murphy if you don't mind if you can come on screen i would like to ask you some questions to answer questions thank you so i'm wondering if we do have a specific contract that the superintendent decides to not renew or to terminate so with this current policy if it does apply if this contract has a specific due date for decision that we cannot convene in time to vote what happens with that contract typically is that a violation of the contract if we're not able to vote in time to make that decision um pv i i don't feel comfortable um really answering that question um because i am not a licensed attorney and i i can't really speak to what would be a contract violation and what wouldn't that's that's not within my purview but um i saw superintendent reichman raise her hand so perhaps she can answer that question i also am not an expert either but in our contract if you read it it does have a termination clause it is stated in there and it does describe what we would need to do if we do determine that we are not renewing the contract and or terminating the contract so we would follow that process this is pv thank you superintendent reichman so i'm wondering what would change that process if we were to as a board have the vote before the superintendent can go ahead and proceed with that superintendent here for the purposes of the desert voices situation would have to bring it to the board we would have had to bring it to the board in may at the may board meeting for your consideration and for open discussion and a vote before we could we were able to inform desert voices about terminating the contract so it would require more time in advance to work with the board members you know about making the decision on renewing or non-renewing or terminating contracts this is tv so if the board cannot convene or if administration or the leadership team realizes that they do need to make a decision to terminate or not renew the board and the board has yet to convene or it's too close to the contract expiration date what happens with that contract are we forced to continue the contract or what what is the exact verbiage that is given to the board in order to give us time to make the vote no pass a certain date superintendent superintendent reichman here yes the procurement office can extend contracts for three months for example to give us more time to make a thorough decision in continuing the contract it also gives the board more time to convene to call a special meeting great thank you with that consideration in mind with the procurement office if we do accept the authority to terminate or to not renew a contract we as a board perhaps overlook some important components of the contract requirement does that mean that the board is now responsible for the error pv this is david the board is always responsible the board has ultimate authority and the board has ultimate accountability we're always responsible pv here so as you say with what you're saying the policy actually states different so currently it is the superintendent and the leadership team that has the ultimate responsibility to execute those contracts if they don't do that work then we have the authority to terminate so if the board is not in concurrent then who is then responsible tv we are responsible for any error what i mean by that is our names are on the caption of lawsuits when the agency gets sued uh we're responsible the age of the board is responsible for the agency we delegate that authority to the superintendent and and other staff we do but the board is responsible for the agency uh and they're accountable for the agency again when we get sued it's our names at the top so we're responsible for the error you know where you know the agency is responsible um you know for that so it's not a question of you know it's not a question of who you know who is technically responsible for an error we're all responsible for an error um that's what we have to understand we all have that that responsibility uh the other thing to understand is that all these contracts are are at least a year uh we have teacher contracts i mean if we if we screwed up and didn't renew teacher contracts we wouldn't have an entire staff that doesn't happen because we we have a good superintendent and we have good leadership and they bring us the contracts well in advance in march of every year and we approve those contracts when we have igas that come on board that need students that are served they're they're brought to us on a periodic basis uh if that got screwed up if we didn't and children didn't get served that would be a problem we have a good staff that does that brings those contracts to us we should not be worried at all um that in a course of a contract uh of course of performance of 12 months that any one of the of the administration of the leadership team would forget to renew or not renew and bring it to us in a lot of time these decisions are made months in advance and they have to be to ensure continuity of services so i'm not worried in the least that the the staff is able is going to be able to bring us these issues in in a timely manner because we do have months and for some reason there is some kind of unforeseen circumstances the superintendent mentioned almost all of these contracts have built-in extensions for short periods of time where we can convene and address it so i i don't have any concern uh that we're gonna miss something we again the agency brings us many contracts i mean how many contracts do we approve in the course of a year i mean hundreds just for employees alone that's that's that's never been an issue for the agency we're very good administrative staff thank you president nigro and i'm not worried about who's at the top of the list for the lawsuit for me is who is accountable so who will hold the board accountable in the end if something does go wrong as opposed to the leadership team going wrong and so we hold them accountable absolutely so my second concern i have with for mentioned statements was that the need is just not too complicated so is this are we getting over complicated so my concern is that we're adding a lot of layers to the process and making this more complex than it needs to be which may not be a good use of agency resources and not a good use of agency time we have been operating with our superintendent and the leadership team as you mentioned they've done a very good job and she's a great leader in leading her team but we do have that one contract that has come up that there is a disagreement on the impact of the three potential students and the families so i don't think that this is an overreaction i mean to pull in all of the direct services which means we're absorbing some of the day-to-day operations at this point from the leadership leadership team we can't say oh that was good well at the same time if we're pulling the expectation away so it's like that's a little bit of a mixed message um in regards to the public comment portion and so if the policy clearly says that we shall have public comments allowed uh there isn't anything on the agenda for that time given so i'm assuming that we did not follow our own policy in establishing that on the internet i'm sorry um pb are you talking about if you're talking about bedh it says the board shall establish the procedures to receive input from citizens and then there are things that we you know that we should establish procedures to have so we should we should have procedures to have public comments on agendas items that's what it says in bdh that we should have procedures for that and our procedure is that we don't need public comments in special meetings however it does say that all open meetings do require to have public comments so this is a special meeting then and it's on the agenda which which policy are you are you talking about let me pull it up just a moment on b-e-d-h it specifically states there shall be two separate calls to the public first call shall allow for comments on agendaized items i looked at the agenda and there is no call to the public and there is no call for public comments on that specific agenda item right so you need to understand two things the top part of that says the asdb board therefore establishes the following procedures to receive input you know that it and that's those are establishing our perspective that means that we're establishing the uh our procedures or we need to establish procedures our procedures are we don't need public comment at a special meaning the second part of that is uh if that if let's just ignore that part you know let's just ignore that other part of it for now if there wasn't uh for again this is not a this is a general meeting this is not a spec this is a special meeting it's not a general meeting um to discuss a particular purpose even if that were the case then that's already done right um that doesn't affect whether or not we can adopt a policy in accordance with our other with our other policies and we can we we can take action this is a properly noticed meeting it's in public it's being broadcast um so that's that's i mean that's the issue um we don't need to have the and again we can have ms murphy look at this if you want um we don't need public comments and even if we didn't and even if we did need public comments let's say for the sake of argument we did if we didn't have public comments in a meeting that doesn't affect our ability to take other action at that meeting i'm not sure where you're getting the interpretation we don't have to allow public comics it says at the top of section b-e-d-h it says all regular and special i want to emphasize that word special meetings of the asap board shall be open to the public and then underneath it says specifically the asb b board therefore sell establish and follow procedures to accept feedback from the public and we have not received input from the citizens based on agendas items i want to make sure that we are being transparent with the public on this issue and we are not being transparent as it stands we are not following our own policies that is my concern tv um oh it says all special meaning should be open to the public and this is open to the public uh it's being broadcast live we're following that it was properly noticed it was properly agendized um the we should this is that we shall establish policies to receive input right and that's that's our typical uh you know typical practice for regular meetings um what i'm saying is even if that we needed public comment let's just say and again i don't i don't i don't concede that point but if we did that is no bearing on other actions that we could take at this meeting okay it was properly noticed um it was properly agendized we got no emails none no emails no one had anything to say about this policy so if you want transparency that's there transparency means that the public can see our business and that's that's what they saw it's on board docs it was on board docks in the appropriate amount of time the policy that we're talking about that's proposed that was there the agenda was there the information to access the meeting was there that's what transparency means and they could always email us that's fine you can always email the board but that doesn't preclude us from taking action here especially action that's needed to close a loophole that we thought we closed several years ago well the point is it can't be a loophole if it was established in policy that the superintendent is required by the board to execute those policies that we've established and second we can't say that we're being transparent to the public if the agenda is not reflecting that we're open to public comments i feel like we are going in circles um and we will continue to disagree and i accept that i just want you to understand that my responsibility is to represent the community and i want to make sure their voices are heard and i want to present that concern to the board and make sure that you understand that we have a missed opportunity to clearly allow the public and tell them that they can make a public comment and since the agenda does not say that it does not give that sense to them and i will move on to the next point miss murphy i do have a follow-up question for you so my question is with the draft of the policy changed were any legal considerations made when the writing of that policy was proposed to the purchasing office of the responsibility to terminate or not renew a contract um i'm not certain that i understand the question pb could you please restate it sure when the policy was um drafted that we is being proposed did we consult with our ag or [Music] get any legal advice to consider the possible impact to procurements or purchasing requirements when it comes to terminating or non-renewal of contracts to answer your question pv no i did not seek the advice of the assistant attorney general did you draft this policy that's being proposed um i did not draft the specific proposed language um and and that was um simply because i i had a um a a personal family um yeah so i i mean i drafted it uh i drafted the proposed language um it mirrors the language that was earned in this in the existing policy and i'll tell you we've we've adopt policy routinely at every meeting and very rarely do we get ag input on policy changes very rarely um and this one again there's no implication of state procurement law here um this is just the asdb board retaining the power themselves to terminate or renew a contract that's already been negotiated and entered into via the state procurement process so there's there's there's no legal concern uh here um and again that's almost never you know again we adopt contracts i mean i want to be crystal clear about this every regular meeting we're dealing with and over the you know we're dealing with at least some iga um over the course of the year we award hundreds of contracts most of them in the march meeting hundreds five six hundred contracts um you know for for employment contracts and leadership contracts you know for the most part we adopt policies literally at every meeting and again almost none is their consultation with uh with the ag okay clarify if miss murphy did not draft this policy and she is our policy experts um she knows the inner workings of the agency was miss murphy consulted with um at the draft of that policy mr yes miss murphy had a personal issue that she needed to attend to so i took the first shot at this and i gave it to her for her comment she commented on it and it's here it is okay president nigro i have to be explicit i'm very concerned with this recent development and kind of taken back my understanding according to policy section bbaa specifically states individual board members only have the authority over ascb affairs to own only by votes at a legal meeting of the asdb board so where did you president nigro get the authority to draft a policy that you are proposing to the board tv i this i'm not drafting the policy that's and saying it's policy i don't have that authority miss murphy had a personal issue i worked with her to i gave her some proposed language she commented on it and here it is it's not policy it's brought to the board in an open meeting to vote on my understanding is that you delegated you had communication without board involved involvement for the writing of that policy incorrect i had communication with the staff member not with other board members and and it is okay to have for board members to have communications with staff members okay to have communication with the board yes that i agree but to take the authority of what looks like a board member to drop and propose a policy i i feel that's not an appropriate procedure we should be following and it seems like the board was not involved in that discussion or in the process of developing that policy and it seems like you've already set that policy based on your draft and now you're making that proposal to the board as if that was policy implemented with the best intention of the agency it kind of feels like we need more information to better understand what's happening and the intent behind the policy it seems a little bit skewed uh pv this is the time for the board to talk about the policy it's a proposed policy uh it's not the actual policy yet the board has to vote on it that's why we're here that's why we have this meeting is for the board to look at this language we look at policy language every meeting and the board can make changes to that policy in fact we often do we talk about it we talk with ms murphy about it we make changes to those policies uh that happens every single meeting um is this can this change yeah that's this just that language can change we cannot vote on it we can vote on it we can make changes to it that's why we are here uh this isn't a policy that is you know somehow already approved um it's it's here for the purpose of this meeting uh and and for discussion that's why it's here um and again the policy mirrors what the board did several years ago right i mean it's again closing that loophole now at the time the board again you can go back to the meeting and watch it the board of the time was concerned about igas because that was the issue that arose at the time was we thought that we were going to disrupt services for 39 families here there's disruption for three families um and that's that's how it is um and that's why we're closing that but again the language if anyone makes a motion later today to adopt this policy we can change that language any way that someone would like that's why it's here for comment that's why it's here for discussion thank you president niagro and i know that dr benedict has a comment do you mind if i follow up with his with doctor with the excuse me night girls comment then i can thank you so uh right so when we're first saying to allow the board to discuss the policy i think it's just it's important for us to notice that these discussions are being held during board meetings not before the board meetings and not being through just one person so we had no idea that this policy was even drafted by a board member without our feedback or input so it for me it seems like it does violate bbaa so i just wanted to make sure that we're not overstepping our authority as individual board members second i do understand the concern with the impact on the three families absolutely we cannot say that this loophole this is a loophole when this was addressed previously when the board was on the oversight so it is responsible for the board to address these kinds of concerns but to have full transparency and conversations prior with everyone involved which includes public comment and input in addition to that i think we also need to keep in mind the three families that are being impacted that they are not losing access they are not losing those services they still have the ability and the opportunity to attend desert voices it's just not going to be through us so that's from what i understand from what superintendent freikman and dr benedict have stated so this isn't a disruption in services that we have to fix now that we can receive that they can still receive services but not just through asdb so if we establish that that is my only conversation so thank you president nicole appreciate it and doctor okay thank you um you need to unders what you need to understand pv is that this is the time for the board to meet i can't consult with other board members and neither can you and neither can any of the board consult with other board members about things that are going to come before the board that's that the reason we have it here is so that the board can talk about it that's that's the issue um you know we can't and the board can do whatever the board wants to do uh with that um but that's why we have this meeting here we can't do it beforehand right we we can't have board members talking to each other beforehand um and and and uh and doing it that's why we have it here this is our time uh to talk about it and again the point about doesn't voices as we've been through before those three families are they're going to have a disruption services they have to reconvene iep meetings they have to figure out where those children are going to be placed based on the best interests of that child then the school district might have an issue with that i don't know it's going to cost the school district significantly more money and that might jeopardize their placement um and that's that's an issue and that's what we need to that's why we're here today may i speak uh present and i grew up uh yes of course thank you i i realize it's not conventional necessarily for someone like me to raise their hand to speak um but um i've been communicating with kristin on the side and asked if i i could do that um in reference to the three families that everyone is referring to um i want you to know that i've spent just about 30 years of my life doing this and the insinuation that we would strand children cuts really deep i have already made a promise to deanne chapman and to superintendent reichman that i would work alongside with these families and with the districts to make sure that the relationships that we have built this last year maintain and continue to flourish and i will make a personal promise to you president nigro that i will do what i said i would do i will be following up with districts i will ensure that the ieps are going to be implemented as they are written and if it comes to be the case where a district is adamant about not sending a child because the voucher is no longer available although that is not okay i will certainly come back to superintendent reichman and we will discuss our options as to how we could potentially support that child i cannot make any promises of course but i will do everything in my power to work alongside desert voices the families and the districts to make sure these three families are taken care of um thank you kendra and uh and kendra we know you're all very dedicated to the families i mean i again i don't want that to get lost in uh in this um and by the way i do know that uh policy bg says that suggestions regarding the content of content of policies may originate with a member of the asdb board the superintendent staff member a parent a student a consultant a civic group or any resident of the state the policy proposal shall be referred to the superintendent for detailed study which is exactly what happened here um in any event are there any other comments from the other board members uh i'm hearing i'm hearing none there are no other comments on this on the potential uh policy change david this is mike so are we are we doing anything with this or not like i mean i've done that we've been running around in circles for three and a half for three hours yeah i i think here what a uh someone would need to make a motion to uh waive the first read policy we'd have to approve that and then the second would be a motion to approve this language uh and and then we need a vote to prove that we're talking just about bringing the same type of action or same type of of uh information to the board at meetings to determine that this type of you know not-for-profit contractor contract would not be terminated without our for prior approval similar as we did with the iga that that's exactly right it would affect about 21 contracts we have i don't know dozens and dozens of igas right and certainly in the same way that we we do that on a personal personnel level we do it all the time for the annual review of an approval of contracts which are even more obtuse for us than certainly uh contractual agreements with providers that's that's exactly right well i'd make a motion to whatever it was you just said yeah so it's uh i'm taking that and the reason i say that you know we're getting run down all this style i understand so a motion to suspend the first uh read procedures is that is that right mike yes okay um is there a second this is dean i second all right all in favor um you can turn on your your camera and say i um i have me saying hi britney saying aye mike saying hi uh aaron saying hi um any nay i think it's pv is the only one saying nay okay so that motion passes and then are there any motions to pass the policy as presented i'll make a motion to pass the policy is presented okay is there a second second uh okay all in favor say aye point of clarification yes before the vote i do have a point of clarification to bring to the attention my only concern with this vote my current concern is that this policy and procedure would then potentially create a conflict of interest which means that the person with the conflict of interest needs to abstain themselves from voting and uh who do you think why do you think there's a conflict of interest from my understanding someone is the chair of fbc the president of their board that oversees contracts which has a direct connection to acb contracts so they have the authority to override the superintendent's decision to terminate or to not renew any contracts i just want to make sure that we maintain our good boundaries for the for the purposes of transparency um pv i would i would agree that if the issue was the fpc contract itself i would of course refuse myself that that is without question um this is a policy that's generally applicable to hundreds of contracts so there's not a uh and fec is just one of them and again i am on the board of fbc i'm not the president of pc anymore my term has ended but i am still on the board i don't own fbc fbc doesn't pay me um everyone you know knows about that and again if if we were if the board were acting in uh directly about the fbc contract then yes i would of course refuse myself provided at the time i was still on the board of fbc um but here this is a policy that's generally applicable and because fbc is a a contractor or vendor to asdb many of the asdb policies that are generally applicable and applied to vendors apply to fbc as as others do so again this is uh this is not a conflict of interest for me um because this policy is generally applicable um to to all the vendors but should this issue come up with fbc then and and um and at the time that it comes up and i'm still on the board of fbc uh then yes i i would would recuse myself uh if there was a con if if there were conflicts so again there's no i don't have any substantial interest in fpc um because again there's no i don't get paid i don't own fcc um and this policy doesn't um uh relate to the fpc contract is that does that make sense to everyone on the board this is dean that makes sense to me i agree is this britney i'm good with it okay can i ask just one quick question before we vote sure of course um just a point of clarification on the proposed policy change the language is around unilaterally terminating or failure to renew is does that also apply to contracts that might have like multiple extensions like a three-year contract with one-off extensions for like a subsequent set is the intent for those to come before the board with the expectation that in general they would likely be renewed for those additional years yes if it was a three-year contract with a one-year year renewal that one-year renewal would come to the board okay thank you just wanted to clarify sure all right um all uh if we're all clear with that uh all in favor of the of the policy aye all right and then no is pv uh and then no is pv okay so that that passes again um all right thank you uh everyone we we go on to action 301 action item uh adjournment um again thank you everyone uh we just need a quick motion i'll move to adjourn there a second off second okay all in favor aye and pb says no okay uh thank you everyone i i appreciate your time today thank you thank you david

good evening at this time i'd like to call the regular meeting of the dysart unified school district governing board to order let the record reflect that all board members are present please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right this evening we will start with recognitions and celebrations be one coach recognition dr dean good evening madam president members of governing board cabinet and members of our community and welcome to our governing board meeting this evening madam president with your permission we're going to come back to b1 um as the recipient of the award that we would like to make sure is honor this evening is not quite here yet um and so we're going to start with b2 and we're going to do recognitions and celebrations a bit differently um as i'm still in two roles with the district um i'll be presenting the information related to uh the recognitions and celebrations and then joining the board on the steps for a picture so if we could ask the board to please um head down to the step area so that we can get pictures with folks and the first one i'm anxious to see how we actually get a picture with because we'd like to recognize our public relations team and if we could have our public relations team come forward [Applause] our public relations team all right see that's clever our public relations team was recently announced to have won several aspiration awards the awards this year include the following our pr team won awards of excellence in multimedia marketing campaign including our career in college virtual expo our dusd centennial our dosd kindergarten enrollment they won excellence in photography with state championship photos and first day of school photos they won excellence in video production with our enrollment video welcome to willow canyon high school video and our thank you dysart veterans video they won excellence in the writing category with the story little miss brown article in the community connect magazine they also won merit in special purpose publication with the new resident postcard and the summer 2021 dicert achiever cheap achiever mailer and finally they won a merit in writing for their article shooting for the stars in the community connect magazine our pr department won just absolutely swept the asper awards this year congratulations pr team madam president i'm just going to continue on this evening with our award and recognition and we're going to move forward to athletic recognitions and athletic recognitions from the spring athletic season at the high school where we had several state champions and we're excited to introduce them this evening we're going to start to back state 5a softball champions and that's the willow canyon high school softball team come on down willow canyon high school's team is coached by coach donnie tozano he's here with his staff this evening come on up as well these girls these girls actually beat the same team twice in back-to-back years for the state championship last year they beat canyon view high school for the state championship 12-4 and this year they beat canyon view high school for the state championship three to two so congratulations to the willow canyon high school softball state 5a state softball champions additionally we have to point out that they have several athletes going on to play division one softball um past their graduation and the biggest thing or the other thing that we want to recognize is that our pitcher marissa mccann only allowed a total of three runs in the entire playoff run so awesome job willow canyon and i will point out as we did with valley vistas girls basketball team they only lose four players from this year's team and we look forward to them being back again next year continuing on this year at the aia state track meet we had two athletes run very very fast and we'd like to start with the division one 200 meter state runner-up from valley vista high school caleb denman caleb would you come forward please caleb we're going to ask you to to stay up here for just a second caleb was the state runner-up in this 200-meter race and he was the state runner-up to his valley vista teammate who won first place in the division one state championship for the 200 meter and 100 meter dash he's the fastest kid in arizona blaze nelson blaze come on down and you know i have to say as they get their picture taken that mr jelovic and i commented on the same thing in the 200 meter dash it was really cool to see them coming down the straightaway and the two valley vista athletes just pulling away from everybody in first and second place so awesome awesome job and the best news is that they're both returning next year so congratulations guys all right moving along thank you gentlemen we're going to stay with valley vista high school because valley vista high school had the aia unified track and field state champions if you were part of that team would you come on down come on up guys is this a game ryan is a good game and we'd like to ask for valley vista unified athlete xavier simpson to stay up here with coach milibar if you don't mind so we would like to recognize valley vista high school unified athlete xavier simpson xavier simpson on sunday evening was awarded the aia unified athlete of the year for the entire state of arizona congratulations xavier and we'd like to thank miss millibar coach milibar as well congratulations xavier that's awesome continuing on we're going to shatter ridge high school shadow ridge high school senior caden passi repeated as back-to-back aia division 1 state champion in the decathlon kaden did you happen to join us this evening is he here tonight all right well let's give him a round of applause anyway and finally last but not certainly not least shadowridge high school i believe junior now since school has turned over kai mills was the aia division one boys singles state champion kai are you in the audience this evening all right well let's give him a round of applause as well [Applause] also this evening we would like to recognize an event that's happened only two times in our school district over the the course of its history and that is that we had a coach inducted into the arizona coaches hall of fame dysart has had one coach previously inducted and we were excited a month or so ago to attend the arizona coaches hall of fame award ceremony where coach rachel matakis joined roy fenton as the only other dicer high school coach to ever be recognized in the state coaching hall of fame coach matakis congratulations and well earned um [Music] congratulations coach and you know i i have to say as as good as the valley vista girls high school basketball program is we happened to pop into the gym yesterday afternoon and there was the varsity team practicing already and what were they doing they were working on fundamentals so even for champions and you guys know this too willow canyon ladies fundamentals are always critically important so coach congratulations the last athletic recognition we'd like to just um or recognize this evening is we mentioned that valley vista high school was was the state champions in the aia unified track and field state championships and shadow ridge high school was the runner-up do we have anybody from shadow ridge here this evening unified sports team well let's give them a round of applause as well madam president that concludes this portion of the celebrations we have one more that we're going to do just a little bit differently so if the board would return to other seats that would be fantastic madam president we would like to recognize a shadowridge high school student who was just honored with a huge award with the be kind crew miss grant is going to provide information on this and then we're going to ask the student to actually give the speech that she gave when she was recognized ms grant thank you so much it is my privilege to introduce miss savannah leone who was a senior at shadow ridge she just graduated and i was at a be kind event and um i had no idea but they introduced her and she won a youth achievement award which is the kindness star and i just i just wanted to share with the district and the board uh her achievement and she's going to read her project that she did at shadow ridge so thank you savannah for coming tonight thank you and savannah before you start i just want to add a little bit of your bio from the award um that we saw with the word recognition um savannah has been involved in multiple sports throughout her high school career she is a participant in the best buddies program am i correct about that which is a great program she has played tennis she's been involved in soccer cheer football lacrosse and dance and savannah is looking forward to studying at barrett honors college at asu correct where she wants to major in sociology and criminology so savannah the floor is yours thank you i stand before you guys today because someone took a step back and noticed how i've been living my life i live my life embracing my strength so that i can fulfill my individual purpose i undoubtedly believe that my responsibility on this earth is to make a difference and change lives we all have a voice but some are able to use it a lot better than others throughout my high school years i've made it my mission to make sure everyone feels loved included and that they belong most recently i planned a you matter week on my campus the entire week was built on the idea that everyone matters and no one is alone we had our student council write every single student's name on a piece of paper and hung him in the hall for all to see it was such a beautiful thing to watch everybody gather in the halls look for their name and get excited once they found theirs the other thing that took place this week was staff and student ted talks either staff or student had the opportunity to share their stories with their peers and teach everyone how they've grown for me this was the most heartwarming experience to see different groups of people in one room with no feeling other than love and compassion many students came up to me crying after and said i never realized you were just like me or i never would have thought you went through that we only see the image that our peers let us see of them but what we don't see is the pain we don't see the hurt and all the past battles they've conquered to be standing with us today so many students were inspired by this and asked to share their stories on the spot because they said i never thought anyone would listen to me up until now to look back over my high school career there is one main teacher who has helped me and supported me in all my endeavors as well as inspired me and this would have to be my senior government teacher mr boos i have never met a more outspoken yet to himself man so passionate about his students he has never been afraid to speak his mind and will never withhold the truth from us he is able to see the strengths in everyone and teach us and has always pushed me to do exactly what i wanted he taught me that if i ever ever scared or hesitant about doing something that i should only want it more and work 10 times harder to get there mr boos has taught me what the real world is like and what the people in it are as well and times when i felt like i failed he made sure to tell me how proud of me he was and only encouraged me to keep going to this individual i have to say thank you for not only believing me but teaching me how to conquer my dreams going forward into this next chapter of my life i hope that with the resources i will now have that i can make more of an impact than ever before thank you for giving me this platform to speak my truth and i can't wait to see what the future holds as you can see we have great kids in this district so thank you savannah if you'll hold on just a minute savannah if we can ask you to hold on if we could ask the board one more time to uh head to the steps so we can get a picture that would be fantastic congratulations is [Applause] and madam president that concludes our recognitions and celebrations for the evening all right thank you next we'll move to item c um audience with individuals miss schaffen this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ars 38-431 dot action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record first we have elliot blevins good evening my name is elliott blevins i'm here as a parent of two children in the dysart school district um obviously after the events of yesterday a lot of us are looking to see that every opportunity to keep our kids safe at school is being done i think something everybody can agree on i would hope is that we can enhance security measures at the school and that we're taking advantage of any opportunity we have to create new safety measures and reinforce existing ones so i would ask the board to consider the following interventions with the goal to reduce the chances of a school shooting in our district by enhancing basic security and prevention measures and improving staff training and community response i would ask you to consider the following as district-wide policies that would hopefully apply to all dysart schools those would be creating a threat assessment team and programming our schools that can recognize risk and intervene in a timely manner that we provide accountability and consistency of safety measures throughout all of the schools these can include locked exterior doors on the campus installing cameras by the front office with a buzzer entrance locked doors between administration front offices and class hallways installing shatterproof barriers in the front offices and locks inside classrooms that allow teachers the ability to lock doors from the inside that we implement an anonymous phone line allowing students and staff to report suspicious behavior and bullying that we provide more licensed school psychologists that are accessible students and staff that we require school emergency plans and lock down drills are to be collaborated with local law enforcement and that we require all staff to take annual trauma-informed training and competencies i know that some of these things a lot of these things require resources and that the district is on a budget i recognize that i do also think that most of the community would support a stand-alone bond to fund improvements to school safety if that's something that can be considered and if so i would ask that the board publicly support that bond as well and try and get as much traction on that as we could and additionally there are a lot of resources available i'm just one guy and i found a lot of information on the internet i know the board is resourceful and can find more too but there's a lot out there the school district could take advantage of so thank you for your time consideration thank you next we have tina mullika good evening madam president members of the board dr dean cabinet and guests my name is tina malika in the 20 years that i've been a surprise resident including 12 as a dysart parent i have watched the district grow and sometimes struggle but become infinitely better since that it was in 2001.

it rose to 41 in 2019 and after 2020 again the proficiency scores fell due to due to the pandemic however the 33 was still higher than the state average of 30 percent and higher than the majority of west valley districts anyone knows that the pending pandemic had a very strong effect on students learning the truth is that dysart performs above average in a state that has the lowest per pupil spending in the nation and that under the leadership of dr kellis the district was on a path towards reading towards improving reading and math proficiency finally in light of the events tragic events that have happened yesterday i want to close with a comment about gun violence and mental health all of the social emotional learning books that this board has been opposed to the ones that might teach meditation or mindfulness or a growth mindset those are all things that help children learn at an early age how to regulate their feelings and the social workers whose hours have been cut they're the ones who help our families find resources when they're struggling with grief depression anxiety gun violence abuse at home social emotional learning is not a bad thing it saves lives thank you [Applause] thank you next we have nicole king president pritchard board and cabinet my name is nicole king and i'm here to discuss school safety as you know yesterday there was a school shooting where 19 children and two teachers died mass shootings are becoming far too frequent there has been one every four days since january first and guns are the top rated cause of death for children and teens accounting for 30 percent of all deaths every teacher you know has a plan for an active shooter knows how fast they can lock a door and frets about how long they can keep a group of 25 students quiet while they're scared for their lives while gun control plays a huge role in school shootings who has access to this these guns plays an even larger role i would like to read the path passage written by my friend monica who has been a teacher in this district for over two decades right now there are so many people in an uproar about social emotional learning being taught in schools sel is a methodology that helps students of all ages to better comprehend their emotions to feel those emotions fully and to demonstrate empathy for others these learned behaviors are then used to help students make positive responsible decisions create frameworks to achieve their goals and build positive relationships with others some people would like you to believe our educators are indoctrinating our children with evil ideas let me explain to you what educators are actually doing we are listening we are listening with our ears correcting our scholars words helping them to choose the correct thing to say when they're advocating for themselves because they've been hurt with words or actions we are listening with our hearts we feel the pain that goes unspoken when our scholars arrive for the day we are helping them to cope with whatever they are dealing dealing with at home our response to them shows them that they can process their emotions in a healthy way we are listening with our eyes we see the subtle changes of our scholars their hair their clothes their demeanor we start the conversation open-ended so that your scholar feels comfortable and ready they know that they have a safe person to talk to as educators we don't know all the answers but we know that our job our training is to help scholars process and deal with what they are going through to have an open heart and open ears we aren't forcing your scholars to be anything but themselves we are trying to work with you and not against you we are a team this is why sdl is so very important as a board and this is for me i have sat here and watched you make bad decisions like reducing our social workers on campuses by 20 days and constantly talking about sel like it's a bad thing and not vital to our students social and emotional health our students lives are in your hands you must do better parents and caregivers is also your responsibility to be involved in your students education know their teachers talk about their day volunteer come to the board meetings be involved be present thank you next we have beth simek dr dean dr pauling dr croto mr hicks miss pritchard members of the board my name is beth simek and i am a parent in the dysart unified school district and i have been an advocate for the district for over 15 years two years ago miss pritchard you and i had a conversation where i expressed to you that i felt like you were selling your soul to get reelected to this position imagine my surprise watching last meeting and seeing the very devil himself come here and stand at this podium and support your decision to get rid of dr kellis i imagine he had to given that a dear friend of many of ours had died just the day before and he didn't want you to forget that you made a promise to him by selling your soul to him to get you re-elected it's a funny thing about that devil back in 2020 he claimed that the dysart override was a big waste of taxpayer money it's funny how that is paying teachers keeping class sizes small ensuring our kids are safe that's a waste interesting you miss schaefen miss densmore you've treated that like it's a joke over the last two years miss schaefen's even smiling right now you've focused on making it harder to work here causing class size to grow exponentially because teachers are leaving that old devil he convinced you that dr kellis was in your way so you changed your governance policy so that you guys would be in charge you guys would have all to say that old devil well then he told you yeah that's okay because the superintendent he works at the pleasure of the governing board what he didn't tell you is that the governing board works at the pleasure of the voters the same voters who voted yes for dysart and expected you to ensure that our property taxes are used in the manner that we directed the same voters who spent hours in the blazing sun holding signs weeks going door to door to campaign months enduring slander harassment even property damage all to ensure our kids would come first that devil he's been trying to convince you that buying out dr kelly's contract for three hundred and twelve thousand dollars it'd be worth it is it is it really is it worth all this uproar so i'm gonna give you an out rather than the three of you being publicly humiliated over the next few months why don't you just tell that devil that you're not gonna be as lacky anymore that he doesn't own you and with that i'm asking for your resignation thank you next we have kathleen honey or is it honey honey sorry i apologize i actually appreciate that miss chafin good evening dr dean miss sink belt and miss grant my name is kathleen o'neil tonight i will be addressing my comments to your colleagues my comments this evening will be directed to your colleagues on the day dice let me help you solve the mystery of the supposed leak regarding dr kellis's forced resignation and hopefully save we taxpayers and your constituents further expense in attorney fees on march 30 you met an executive session to discuss the superintendent's performance this was following a notice of the board being in quorum touring esa programs across the district which provided ample opportunity for the three of you to legally although highly and ethically discuss anything you pleased about his performance on april 13th you met to discuss his contract and community engagement april 27th not only did his the discussion include contracts that also included legal consultation regarding contracting private consult we are not fools private consul would only be provided to negotiate an immediate end to a contract those of us who teach internet safety understand that nothing online is ever private as ms pritchard was very happy to point out to me in an email response recently you all got upset when we came to the logical conclusion that you were preparing to either buy him out or fire him it became public knowledge when your group miss densmore posted on telegram exactly what the plan was on may sixth i don't make that statement speculatively it was made evident by the pres presence of a known antagonist from purple for parents traveling from the other side of the valley to speak on may 11th i am providing that telegram post to miss brown and will request that it be added to the meeting minutes so that it can be part of the public record and the attorney can now stop investigating editor at taxpayer expenses as for the involvement of outside groups who a year ago furiously pounded on the doors and windows of this building sowing fear among children parents educators alike calling the respected members of our law enforcement community nazis that is unacceptable because these statements encouraged agitation at the last meeting miss dinsmore i encourage you to resign this evening i recu request the last few minutes of my time be reserved for a moment of silence for all the students this district has lost because of your inaction thank you next we have janet leblanc good evening my name is janet leblanc a tax paying resident in regards to the may 11th meeting i'd like to note that all speakers were respected and allowed their two minutes to be heard until it was my turn to speak when i apparently said something in opposition of the opinion of the majority in attendance at this opposition they became very disruptive and disrespectful please note that many in attendance were teachers and staff what a disgraceful example they provided especially for our children later i couldn't help but think is this how they teach our children to react to opposition is this what is taught under the sel umbrella even though i'm a taxpayer whose monies purchase the curriculum for our children i have no access to any curriculum it appears that the dysart unified schools are not in compliance with the arizona revised statutes specifically 39-121 that states inspection of a public record shall be open to inspection by any persons at all times and 39-121.01 defines a public record and it defines a school district as a public body this thus subjecting these records to public inspection so i must ask where is dysart's transparency why are these statutes not being complied to in the meantime i challenge the board to look into the sel curriculum for further review since i do not have access to these public records i thank you for the great job that you're doing thank you next we have larry leblanc uh good evening uh larry leblanc our resident taxpayer to quote our founding father thomas jefferson if we are to guard against ignorance and remain free it is a responsibility of every american to be informed i have decided to become informed during the last board meeting several supporters of the previous superintendent stated to the board in regards to the decision to accept the resignation of dr kellis they were saying don't make this a political issue yet i saw mayor skip hall a previous city manager uh bill pupo and they were also accompanied by a city councilman chris judd so let's not make this political [Music] i thank the board for helping me to understand the duties and responsibilities of the education staff which keep me informed my wife and i have been a taxpayer of the dysart school district for about 22 years i have never failed to pay the wages of any anyone to which my taxes are distributed for the record how many children do janet and i have in the school system all of them [Music] want to learn i want to learn how well our monies are utilized i will be seeking information in areas of which i appreciate the help and cooperation of any department and i think i can rely on ars 39-121 to help support any reasonable request i will follow our procedures in place to request records of expenditures and also to learn the duties and responsibilities of each department i am particularly interested in the purchase of our curriculum and i really wish to learn the complete role of a social worker i am here to be informed our country is threatened by tyrannical strategies that suppress our republic for which we stand i am born for such a time like this it is my duty to stand between in the gap between tyranny and our american future our students that's our american future i have discovered misbehavior by these folks in the past in fact spending money without the governing board approval and perhaps this has even happened before and it was assured that it would not happen again and yet it did i invite anyone to disprove such behavior that is conformed along with all concerns forthcoming if i am incorrect i will publicly own this and apologize thank you and god bless america thank you thank you next we have michael hutchinson good evening president pritchard governing board members dr dean cabinet i came here tonight to personally thank you for approving the new school resource officers for our junior high schools um my name is michael hutchins by the way i live in el mirage i'm just assuming everyone probably knows that now i've been planning to come by for a while but i wanted to wait until the whole thing was approved and signed by the city and all that which we did nine days ago so i'm here um and and i wish more of my colleagues or more people were to really just thank you in person um now some of your friends of mine as a matter of fact don we worked on this together and uh but i want to be clear i'm here to thank all five of you tonight because your vote to approve this was unanimous as it should be and i just want to say this is a really hard subject to speak about after what happened yesterday a really hard one it's a conversation that we need to have i believe we have more work to do so let's get into some rough numbers okay school resource officer costs about 100k for each one and to place them in the rest of our schools we're looking at about two million bucks annually not a small amount now in a budget of over 200 million we're talking about one percent hovering right around the one percent more like i said it's not a small number i know very well just hard how hard it is to find money in budgets especially for important things but i will say this if we took a poll right now to every resident in dysart and ask them do you think it's worth one percent of the budget to put a cop in every school i think we all know what the answer to that poll would be by an overwhelming amount over the last year and a half you all have made me very proud of our school district you've confronted tough issues and you've done it with care dignity and grace thank you for again for protecting our kids and thank you for standing up for all of us good night thank you that concludes our call to the public for this item thank you next we'll move to itemd superintendent governing board updates for superintendent update dr dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet and our community this evening we would like to start this evening by congratulating all of the graduates of the class of 2022 and it was an outstanding opportunity for us to celebrate with them and honor them last last week during graduation and so congratulations to our graduates and we wish them the best in their future endeavors also this evening we would like to extend our thoughts and prayers for those in texas and the the tragedy that occurred yesterday it certainly is something that is on our hearts every single day we spent some time this morning sending information to our principals reminding them of our several components of our safety protocols and and we continue to review those often throughout the course of the year as part of our regular monitoring but we'll do so once again this in the next week or so as it relates to the tragedy that occurred but again our thoughts and prayers are with those in texas and then finally this evening continuing on a bit of a somber note a couple of weeks ago dysart lost a friend to this school district in the passing the sudden and unexpected passing of michelle caruso miss caruso was to say she was a friend of the dysart school district as an understatement ms crusoe served as part of our employee benefits trust as a trust board member she served as the overarching booster at shatter ridge high school she served as the pta president at canyon ridge and was one of the first people that i met when we opened sunset hills elementary school 17 years ago miss crusoe will be missed um her chair will sit empty for quite some time in the back the very last thing that miss crusoe said to me two days before the board meeting on may 11th was please make sure to save my seat and so this evening and for many evenings to come miss caruso's seat is saved and we will miss her we wish her family the best and to her family please know that we stand at the ready for anything that they need and that concludes my report this evening thank you dr dean i don't want to discount anything you've said by saying ditto but i'm going to repeat many of the same things that you touched on [Music] as dr dean mentioned congratulations to the class of 2022 it was amazing to be a part of the celebration that evening and i wish them all nothing but the best as they start their next chapter of their lives i also want to thank dr dean for honoring the memory of our dear friend michelle caruso she was definitely a staple in our district and our community and as we are learning as each day passes her good works within the community go beyond what some of even her closest friends and family realized she was always doing for others and putting the needs of others before her own and always finding some good in everyone she was one of my dearest friends and she was part of my everyday so looking at my phone and not seeing a text or three missed calls from her just makes the reality of her passing all the more painful but the love that she had for our district was immeasurable she was the only governing board candidate that ever lost an election and continued to come to each and every subsequent board meeting she was truly dedicated to dysart she continued serving as dr dean said on booster boards long after her children were no longer attending the school she'd be the first to rally the community with prayer or coordinate donations for a family in need even when she knew very little about them personally my life and i'm sure the lives of many may not be this will not be the same without her but our lives were definitely enriched because she was in it and my thoughts and prayers go out to the crusoe family she was truly a blessing i'm continuing with that sad news i too want to offer up my prayers to the victims and families of the robb elementary school community as they have a long road of healing ahead of them during this horrific tragedy please keep them all in your thoughts and prayers um i'm gonna leave it at that thank you that's all i have anyone else i'll try um i do need to give a um a quick shout out to miss lockhart and her team at sundown their completion ceremony um was the day after may 12th thank you for guiding the class of 2022 to the finish line hard work does pay off but harder work shows in your efforts for those students so thank you ms lockhart and thank you to the team as dr dean said we all attended the dysart graduations those are always a highlight of a governing board's time during the year students walking across the stage their smiles their handshakes they're scared but i wish them to have a bright future and come back and see us over the years next few years um [Music] just like dr dean and miss pritchard had said um steadily thinking of the students that lost their lives and the teachers in texas it pains me that this could happen in surprise and i hope and pray that it never does but yes we need to be mindful and make sure that all of our students are protected and our parents and community members that we can make sure everything is in place and just like dr dean and miss pritchard said the passing of miss caruso has hit lots of us very deeply and she had an energy that went through so many so many things that she was involved in you know bringing coffee to teachers to schools donations or whatever and uh each of our parents love the students and the teachers in our district um and i am not minimizing that at all um but ms caruso was very involved within dysart and i am very proud to have called her my friend um the one black long sleeve sweatshirt that is sitting on the back in her chair i got from one of the shadow ridge secretaries today and caruso made all of those shirts for the secretaries at shadow ridge bedazzled and and the sr on the thing um she loved what she was doing she had an energy she had a passion and she will definitely be missed okay thank you next we move to item e motion to approve consent agenda items i move the governing board approve consent agenda items as presented second motion made by christine pritchard seconded by don densmore motion carries next we move to information discussion items g1 board monitoring of adopted policy section 12 education agency relations dr dean thank you madam president members of governing board members of cabinet this evening we bring the final policy for policy review during this fiscal year and that's policy section 12 education agency relations administration has no recommended changes to this policy any questions or comments from the board okay thank you very much we'll move to uh next item g2 information on employee evaluation rubrics dr dean madam president members of the governing board and members of cabinet this evening dr croto will present information or his department i should say will present information on our employee evaluation rubrics dr croto thank you dr dean madam president dr dean cabinet guests tonight as requested by a governing board member we present to you some information on evaluation rubrics and i'd like to welcome to the podium dr jane wiefrich director of human relations to share that information with you dr wiefridge thank you good evening madam president members of the board dr dean cabinet thank you for allowing me to present this evening so i have information on rubrics within our evaluation system for you tonight you did receive a pdf that contained all of the rubrics in the system for your review um on the screen you can see that we do have specific positions that do fall under certain rubrics so i wanted to list them out for you and then the other side note that i have is please um understand that the nursing rubric is under construction so i shared with you the existing rubric and then the at the end of your pdf is the rubric that we are working on that's under construction to replace the existing nursing rubric and that is for the nurses only not the hsas so that really is all i have for you tonight so if you have any questions about rubrics i would be happy to answer them for you i would just like to say i appreciate you going through and taking the time to differentiate the different positions and align them with a specific rubric i know back in the day everyone was kind of evaluated on a teacher rubric and for some of our staff it'd just be like n a n a n a um so not only does this make it relevant um and and truly applies to each position but it also gives our employees then time to shine and show what they can do within their discipline um and within their profession so uh i think it's great and i appreciate the time that you took to to get this changed in that way so thank you i do have a question how often do we revisit the rubric criteria a lot of it is driven by legal so if we see a change mr hicks always pays close attention to legislation and so if we see a change in anything like that we also have an evaluation team that meets every year for instance we have a team that had come together for the nursing rubric because they felt that it needed to be more applicable to nursing so it we that team does meet annually and we process as we need to and make sure that we capture any legality changes that we would have okay and then what does that process look like when you have to revamp a rubric or tweak it with legal changes well it would look like the evaluation team coming together there's we come together annually and there's um individuals from each area so it's there's a teacher there's administrator there could be a different certified positions all come together and obviously if it's a legal change in how we evaluate there haven't been any for the past couple years we make the adjustments we come together as a team we do the research we look at what other districts have we pull research from other areas so we actually do come together as a team and process it it's not any one person that decides a rubric or we want it to best fit and then obviously it goes to cabinet and and we make sure that we've covered all our bases so i hope i'm answering your question thoroughly enough yes thank you you're welcome any other questions or comments from the board thank you very much you're most welcome next we move to g3 transition of district leadership and dr dean madam president this um agenda item is at the request of uh governing board member and we'll turn it over to you i didn't want to step on your toes not a problem i appreciate that thank you and we do have some public comments okay do you want to do that first sure okay this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ars 38-431 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record first we have nicole king president pritchard board and cabinet my name is nicole king and i'm here to discuss the future of district leadership there are five of you right now come november there will be two open seats as you know we are actively working to recall two of you making a decision about the future of the district when 80 percent of you could be gone by march of next year seems absolutely ridiculous the fact that the community is so up in arms about your decision to remove dr kellis wasting three hundred and twelve thousand dollars in taxpayer money that we have already collected thousands of signatures in just two weeks time shows you that you made the wrong decision ms pritchard miss densmore and miss chapman i call for your resignation tonight so our district can start the process of healing the wounds that you have caused so we can elect a new board who actually listens to our community and not special interest groups trying to dismantle public education thank you next we have beth simek dr dean mrs pritchard members of the board and cabinet my name is beth simek i am a parent of a sixth grader at mountain view elementary school i'm trying to understand the rationale of forcing the resignation of a superintendent with a ninety two percent approval rating at the cost of three hundred and twelve thousand dollars and then spending at least three hundred thousand dollars more on the search for a new superintendent i would also like to understand the at least twenty thousand dollars spent to reple reprint all of the high school diplomas and the thousands that are being spent to replace stationery website updates etc etc i'd also like to understand how how much each of your souls cost because these decisions are costing our district a lot of money the respect and dignity and honor that we have had but now we find ourselves to be an utter joke in the education community it's hilarious good old councilman hutchinson would come here tonight and encourage expenditures when he vehemently opposed the bond in 2019 which would have paid for most of his suggestions the irony that he has been so vehemently opposed to the override to support our teachers and kids and to protect them from what's going on in our communities the irony of his encouraging these expenditures when he himself has spent thousands of dollars opposing the things that go on in this district but hey i guess it's okay that we talk about uh political things as long as we agree with them right mr leblanc anyway miss pritchard as you recall you were talking about your friend michelle caruso maybe you'll remember that she begged you not to force this resignation of dr kellis she supported him wholeheartedly the irony of you forcing his resignation the very next night after she passed away how does that honor her at all i suppose it shouldn't really surprise me that you would sell out her requests like that i mean after all you have sold out our kids for the last two years thank you next we have t william conium did i say that correctly yes thank you okay you're welcome i understand it's an awkward name uh good evening madam president members of the board uh dr dean and members of the cabinet uh my name is william conium i'm a parent of two dysart students the next superintendent could fundamentally change the direction of the district for years to come daiso residents deserve to have a voice in that direction through their vote the selection process should not be rushed through by a board that has two members facing an active recall and two other seats for up for election it's possible that 80 of the board could be different in just six months this is an unprecedented situation and this is a critical decision should be made after the upcoming board election so that dicer voters have the opportunity to weigh in on this decision that will have a profound impact on the course of the district for years to come thank you thank you [Applause] thank you that can that concludes the comment for this item thank you all right so um right i was the board member that requested this item um if you recall at our last meeting the board appointed um a new acting superintendent and while i've have personally have met with cabinet to initiate some preliminary discussions regarding the importance of a successful transition i wanted to public publicly give the board an opportunity to express some expectation as leadership transitions so although this won't take the place of our annual superintendent goal setting that typically takes place in august i believe it's beneficial for our acting superintendent to receive some preliminary direction so we can begin to heal and move forward as a district and i want to give each board member some time to express what's important to them when it comes to effective leadership so just speaking for myself i believe it's imperative that the relationship between the superintendent and the board be one of trust and transparency when trust is broken and the relationship is negatively impacted it can interfere with completing the business of the district so i would encourage our acting superintendent and cabinet to discuss any board member concerns with board members directly speaking with one board member to resolve concerns that doesn't involve them only causes splintering among board members and divisiveness and deteriorates relationships so i would just ask for that that open trusting transparent communication on the top of a communication i would like to express the importance that i place on timely communication with the board especially when it pertains to issues facing our students and stakeholders i also believe that building a strong community around a school district is vital while it is clear that we have an amazing relationship with the city of surprise respectfully the city of surprise is not the only community that dysert serves and we must be mindful of that the relationship that this district has with the city of el mirage for example pales in comparison to the relationship it has with the city of surprise i would like the acting superintendent to revitalize those relationships with the city of el mirage and be willing to listen to any concerns they may have to get better insight into how we can foster healthy relationships moving forward our el mirage families deserve the same benefits as our surprise families when it comes to city and school district relations and then finally perhaps most importantly we need to address the decrease in academic achievement and academic accountability in our district even prior to covid years for years i have advocated for increased academic achievement in our district but i have specifically advocated on behalf of the students in our title 1 schools and have extreme concerns regarding the lack of academic growth while math is a specific area of concern overall proficiency rates are very low i'm a firm believer that all students can learn no exceptions and no exceptions means regardless of zip code academic accountability must be a priority and i'd ask that this be a priority as district leadership transitions during this time and those were just my individual thoughts of effective leadership and messages i'd like to send forward to dr dean but i'd open it up for the rest of the board if they have anything that they'd knowing that we will have for their conversations in august or this summer but if there's anything extra anybody else i just want to give some direction there is one thing miss pritchard and we have shied away from it um over the past year and a half two years okay a little bit more than two years um uh a valid point that you had just said the um cohesiveness between the cities city of surprise city of el mirage um several years ago we had um a council liaison excuse me a board member liaison that met with the superintendent and also with appointed people in both cities and we kind of let that just go i believe miss tanner was the one that was it for several years and so we didn't reinstitute it and um i quite honestly would like to see that re i think that's a good idea um because we haven't it's been at least three years since we've done it and so i think that would be a very good thing to do i think that'd be helpful as well thank you um but i didn't know where this particular agenda item was going to go so i will have to think on that a little bit more as to what more to put in it but that city liaison came to my mind anyone else um i would just like to echo um pretty much everything that miss pritchard said um along the lines of being transparent and and having that open dialogue with the board which so far has been wonderful but specifically along the communication lines direct communication with with a board member about that board members concerns and not sharing that information with other board members that's very very important to me also communicating when we maybe spotlight have a spotlight in the media whether it's positive or negative sometimes we hear things on social media from friends after the fact so if you are aware of things ahead of time that are that are happening whether it's a school safety issue or a celebration may be going on at one of our schools that might be in the media i think that those are very important for board members to be aware of so that we you know can be more involved and understand what's going on in our district um really just having a more having a stronger trust you know in those communications is going to be paramount for me i i agree and you know when agenda items come up when any board member requests an agenda item then i would ask that the expectation is that the agenda item makes it on regardless of who it is or what it is if a board member asks for an agenda item it should appear mrs i'm not prepared because i didn't know we were going to have to do comments tonight about uh yeah i have to it just it will have more opportunities it was just preliminary thoughts yeah no so so far the thoughts are pretty good and i do like the liaison idea that's a that's a good one that's a good idea all right well then we'll go ahead and do you have any questions dr dean no madam president thank you for the information um we certainly i took notes and we certainly look forward to working with the board for the betterment of all of our kids and and to assure that the environment that we provide is is one that is conducive to learning so thank you so very much um for for the feedback and i look forward to further feedback as well thank you so much thank you all right we'll move to h uh one recommendation to approve the appointment of assistant principals dr dean madam president members of the governing board and members of cabinet this evening we are pleased to present to the governing board two recommendations for assistant principals and this should conclude our hiring hopefully knock on wood for our administrators for uh next school year both prospective administrators are here with us this evening and so this evening we would like to start with our recommendation for assistant principal at valley vista high school and that would be miss ashley morton miss morton is here with us this evening miss morton holds a bachelor of arts in mathematics from michigan state university and a master's in educational leadership from grand canyon university lopes up and she has spent time in her career teaching math in arizona as well as being an assistant principal and so this evening we are excited to present miss morton to you for consideration in the same motion we are also presenting to the governing board ms delaney ferguson as assistant principal at cimarron springs elementary school and if you'll give me just a minute to click on miss ferguson's information miss ferguson um has uh has taught science in her career high school science she holds a bachelor of arts in biology from ottawa university and a master of science in educational leadership with from capella university she also has a post-baccalaureate certificate in secondary education with honors from ottawa university miss ferguson has also not only served as an assistant principal or as a science teacher but has also served as an assistant principal in the buckeye school district and so this evening we are pleased to present both miss morton and miss ferguson for your approval thank you sport have any questions or comments no just just one quick comment go ottawa congratulations all right then at this time i approve the appointment of ashley morton and delaney ferguson as assistant principals for the 2022-2023 school year second motion made by christine pritchard seconded by tracy spursenko motion carries congratulations next room to h2 recommendation to approve the memorandum of understanding with the dysart education association for the 2022-2023 school year dr dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet this evening dr croter will present information on the memorandum of understanding with our certain education association for the upcoming school year thank you dr dean madam president members of the board dr dean cabinet guests tonight we bring to you the memorandum of understanding for our certificated employees and it's between the dysart education association and the governing board it is a yearly agreement that we bring to you every year for discussion this year there are no major changes most of the changes you will see that are redlined are language cleanup areas and with that i will stand for any questions you may have any questions from the governing board i have a couple of questions um if we look on page let me scroll down um of the mou if we look at b duties and teaching it's at the very bottom um b1a it says that both parties agreed that an attempt will be made to provide a fair distribution of prep time and this is basically for all pre-k through eight um or yeah pre-k through eight and then fifty minutes per middle school um is there a reason why you're looking for the first attachment or second attachment i'm just i'm looking at this one fifteen of them yes yes of the mou so i'm just kind of curious as to why it's worded agreed that an attempt will be made is there a reason we can't say teachers will get a prep every day madam president member chaffin there is no reason why we can't change language again the agreements between the association and the governing board however if it's may there are certain circumstances where sometimes they do not get prepped as you know with having to cover classes and doing those things that exist in today's employment era with people being out or teachers being on not having enough substitutes sometimes it's not always possible to make sure that they do so the may provides us an opportunity to say we will try in every circumstance to make that happen but sometimes um it's not possible that we need all the help we can get so basically that's just kind of up to sight administration to make sure that follows through for our teachers unless there's an emergency unless somebody's out sick and we need to cover absolutely that is correct and then i was also looking at looks like the professional work day um and the duty-free lunch um i don't know that the 30-minute duty-free lunch is continuing to happen for all our k-4 schools or some of our k-8 schools is there any way we could just reiterate the expectation that teachers should not have any recess duty or any other duties for a solid 30 minutes madam president miss chapman as we are meeting with our school principals in the the next week or so we are happy to um assure that that information is uh reiterated and and it is something that we expect of our schools it is in the mou it is in it is the agreement with the with our teachers and there is not a reason that they should not be scheduling a 30 free 30 minute duty free lunch each day okay thank you and then i also wanted to touch base on parent teacher conferences page 16 it looks like [Music] on d at the very at the on page 16 at the very last bullet teachers are expected to complete professional responsibilities on early dismissal days designated for parent teacher conferences etc however when all responsibilities have been completed teachers may leave um i know that for special areas and electives we are we've been told that we have to stay until 7 pm where other teachers they can have conferences throughout the week and then if they're done at two o'clock on thursday they can go home but special areas and electives we're told that we have to stay until seven so is there a way we could make sure to enforce this for our special areas too because most of the time when parents want a conference with us they let us know ahead of time and we can set up a website saying we're available at this time and this time go ahead sign up or if you need another time so i understand that most teachers or most parents want to just talk to the classroom teacher because they're limited on time but it's it's in the mou and i feel like special areas and electives should be included in that also madam president miss chaffin the answer to your question is yes we can certainly work with our school administrators to provide a reasonable opportunity for our parents to meet with our special area teachers while also providing the same benefit for our special area teachers that we have in the mou for our general education classroom teachers as well we're happy to do that as well thank you any other questions um just a point of clarification on the class size recommendations is that average at the district level or is that average at the site level madam president member densmore that is average at the site level so when we look at the class size goal which are dictated in the mount we do review those quite often sometimes at the beginning of the year two three times a day because we'll update our data that many times the first couple of weeks of school to make sure that we stay on top of that so it it's generated at a site level um that we look at that piece and then should we need to look to add a teacher to alleviate or alleviate large class sizes uh hr can certainly do that we also have a couple of other or another remedy in there where we can add an instructional assistant to a grade level should a teacher not be available or it be late in the year what have you but those are generated at the school level okay and then uh the monday early release for the development time have you ever done a study as to the effectiveness of that time madam president mrs jensmore i'm not aware of a study that's been completed in the time that i've been in the school district i've been here 17 years and i'm not aware of a study that's been done as in relation to the effectiveness of our monday early release days however i will tell you that it is on our list of items that we will be looking into next school year there certainly is a need for teacher professional development however we also have a need for instructional time as well and and that is the reason that is on our list thank you anyone else okay i moved the board approved the memorandum of understanding with the dysart education association for the 2022-2023 school year motion made by christine pritchard seconded by joe grant motion carries next we move to h3 continuing in-service training and development for governing board members dr dean madam president we have one person to speak on this agenda item this is the public time this is the time for public for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ars 38-431.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you preach the podium please state your name for the record we have miss kathleen honey right okay all right good evening my name is kathleen o'neil i am addressing this item and the agenda because as you consider your professional development i encourage you to consider how you communicate with your constituents i am providing a copy of ms chaffin's post on the el mirage political page for may 13 and request it be entered into the meeting minutes in the in this post you attempt to refute every action for which the recall has been requested you also stated i have never addressed you about these concerns on may 11th i attempted to correspond with you and every other member of the board i have not received response from you social media is not the place for governing board business although i would not call our exchange professional i do appreciate that miss pritchard responded in our exchange you accused me twice of threatening you you stooped to the level unbecoming your office by pointing out that prior to the last time i spoke here you only recognized my name from an ill worded out of context and private facebook page from six years ago since your emails are subject to public public records requests and i have nothing to hide i'm also providing and requesting those exchanges be entered into the meeting records you associated me with groups who needed to allow dysart to heal and avoid collecting signatures near in the end of the year events not only was that a violation of my constitutional right to petition my government for redress it caused me pause as i wondered what healing you felt the community needed to do if you believed your decision was in the best interest of the district i am before you speaking for myself as an individual i will work with everyone to ensure that the students in this community have a school board that represents their collective best interests if that makes me part of a group then i'm grateful to be a member of it i encourage you ms chafin and miss pritchard to save the taxpayers in this district any further expense and truly allow us to heal by immediately resigning as a as a point of personal privilege from an earlier earlier item i will explain to you that luke is actually on a county island so when you are deciding on who you need to include please consider luke in your discussions thank you madam president this agenda item is provided so that the board may discuss continuing in-service training opportunities thank you that concludes our public comment dr dean madam president again this uh this item is provided so that the governing board has opportunity to discuss opportunities to attend conferences workshops conventions for continuing in-service training and development of its members does the board have any uh questions or concerns comments regarding this item i i do have um just two quick questions in years past we have always carried over one year of um travel budget and this year it looks like two years of being asked to carry over i'm just curious why if they're well if they're if there was monies that weren't used then they would it would go towards the cost of board member development professional development and now that we're not a part of nsba or asba um finding conferences that would be applicable to our roles might be more difficult we would not be getting the discount that we would have if we were a part of nsba so [Music] again um i know that cognia when they did their accreditation when speaking with me had commented about just inquired about our level of professional development as a board and making that a priority so this would allow that to occur by carrying over two years and then adding on the new year it's not new money it's money that just that board member didn't spend it no i know i know exactly what it means it's just in years past we've only carried over one year so but you're wanting to carry over two years because of something that cognia had said and because we're no longer a part of nsba and i remember mr singfel there's been times when you have asked to borrow money from other board member budgets because you'd be going to a conference and maybe your allotment had been diminished and so it didn't cover the cost so this would allow for having that extra in their an event similar to what you've experienced okay and um because of the way it's worded you're still wanting to keep in nsba and asba as part of the motion at the beginning of the motion to me it looks correct me if i'm wrong but to me it looks like it's including not a membership in nsba and asba but it's keeping it open to any board members who may want to attend those trainings is that correct right i mean because i'm certainly not going to tell a board member they cannot attend what i'm saying is there's a small discount if you're a member um and you know i've been to several asba trainings and not all presenters at these trainings or nsba trainings necessarily share the same narrative that was going out that caused this board some board members to have concern with continuing membership so yes if a board member wants to continue as again mr simple you uh recently went to a conference nsba conference it would not prevent anyone from doing that okay um i do have a question for mr hicks though um is there anything within the auditor general guidelines or even with our auditors that would um would raise a red flag if we continued with excuse me if we moved from two years of carrying over um excuse me move to the two years of carrying over the budget travel budget um because we've always done one year so i'm just is there anything within those guidelines um madam president members of the board from the audit standpoint there's no if we change our process from one to two years it's more of a additional small burden on ms brown to continue to track it and it will be rolled over and so we'll be able to operationally do this but it wouldn't show a red flag with um our audit i do not believe so okay thank you any other questions or concerns um how is it handled with district employees do they get i mean the obviously get to travel to conferences but if they don't mute are they allotted travel expenses madam president miss grant each individual employee has not allocated a budget for travel however if they're interested in attending conferences or if the school deems the a conference would be beneficial for a school initiative or something that they're working towards then they can use their their their budget to do so and and they are they can use their school budget or department budget to to be able to attend and travel to the conference appropriate expenses are reimbursed per auditor general guidelines and including the travel including the cost of the of the conference etcetera okay anything else all right then i move the board approved travel conference registration and reimbursable travel fees for individual board members to attend training and conferences that may include but are not limited to arizona school boards association and national school board association events for each board member for the 2022-2023 school year an approved amount of four thousand dollars is designated plus any monies remaining in an individual board member's travel allowance for the 2020 2021 and 21 22 school years will be carried over and added to that individual's travel budget for the 2022-2023 school year if an individual board member exceeds the allocated travel and conference allocation the board member would need to bring the travel request to the whole board for consideration and action as part of the action discussion agenda second motion made by christine pritchard seconded by crystal schaffen could we get you to re-read the motion i'm kidding of course all in one breath can lisa type that fast motion carries next we move to item i request for future agenda items can i make a request that we follow up with mr um mr blevins on the school safety and his concerns madam president ms chapman we um i i took good notes during that time and we will follow up with everyone who requested such okay thank you okay all right then we move to imj executive session we have a call for executive session pursuant to ars section 38-431.03 a 3 and a 4 to receive legal advice from from and provide direction to the attorney for the public body regarding acting superintendent's contract of employment and pursue it to ars 38431.03 a3 to receive legal advice from the attorney for the public body regarding open meeting law complaint self-report and potential investigation and pursuant to ars 38-431.0383 to receive legal advice from the attorney for the public body regarding superintendent search process i move that we adjourn to executive session motion made by christine pritchard seconded by tracy sorcinville motion carries work adjourn for executive session this time we'll go ahead and reconvene the regular meeting and move to action discussion items k-1 possible action to provide direction to the attorney for the public body as discussed in executive session and at this time i make a motion to direct the attorney for the public body as discussed in executive session second motion made by christine pritchard seconded by crystal sheffin motion carries next we move to action discussion item k2 approval of the employment contract for the acting superintendent this time i moved the board approved the employment contract for acting superintendent second motion made by christine pritchard seconded by don dunsmore motion carries congratulations next we move to item k3 possible action regarding procurement of a superintendent search firm any um comments from the board further discussion i am requesting that we table this if that's the will of the board is there um can you talk a little bit about your reason for tabling given the options i would like to seek further information given the options i don't know how to say that without violating more options than the ones discussed or legally available to us are we allowed madam president members of the governing board um so the item presented before you is to take possible action to direct the district administration to procure a superintendent search firm you the board received legal advice regarding the various options that would available to you to legally hire a superintendent by tabling this item you would allow the district administration to bring back to you other options rather than the procurement of a superintendent search firm so voting to table would be one way to not proceed with the hiring of a search firm if that's the will of the board it is hard to i we did receive legal advice regarding options i don't know that there would be any new options but i believe it would be a process that you're talking about correct the board could certainly consider an alternative process at a future board meeting i'm just going to i'm going to move that the board declined to procure a superintendent search firm and direct administration to bring brock bring back a process for an in-house superintendent search second because i think that this will give them the opportunity to start that discussion now versus waiting until the next board meeting especially since we're going into a uh summer where it's just once a month and this will bring process information back so it kind of sounds like that's what i'm i'm i'm mainly wanting the process so that's why i was thinking of tabling it but yeah i'm fine with that um move that the board declined to procure a superintendent search firm and direct administration to bring back a process for an in-house superintendent search can i just ask a clarifying question on doing an in-house search do they have the capability of doing it nationwide versus just the state of arizona yes they do yeah okay yes that was a yes from dr croto as well okay all right so we have a motion made and i seconded madam president we'll start that process right away thank you and uh next we move for um i moved that we adjourn the meeting second question made by christine pritchard seconded by joe grant you

good evening [Applause] good evening everyone [Music] before we begin the traditional ceremony i ask that we observe a moment of silence in memory of the 19 children and two teachers killed in yesterday's tragic school shooting in texas thank you once again good evening parents community members and friends my name is anat salyer i'm the proud principal of moon valley high school and it is an honor to welcome you to the 2022 commencement ceremony for our 270 moon valley graduates this evening is the culmination of four years of their hard work and dedication and it's the beginning of many more memorable moments thank you for being here as we celebrate the achievement of our graduating seniors at this time please rise as the moon valley high school color guard presents our state and nation's colors and please remain standing for our national anthem carey forward [Music] who's brought stripes and bright stars [Music] streaming [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes [Music] and [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] faces [Music] thank you and please be seated [Applause] to enable all our guests to view our incoming graduates we ask that you please remain seated during the processional ladies and gentlemen i proudly present to you the graduating class of 2022 [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening moms dads grandparents friends and so many others who are important to each person sitting in these gowns most importantly good evening to the class of 2022 tonight is our night it's my honor to be standing here today my name is micah southwick and i'm your student body president [Applause] after the past two years who would have thought we would all be here today in a graduation ceremony that we can finally call normal not only did covet affect the classes of 2020 in the class of 2021 but it stole half our high school experience away from us we missed out on the ending of our sophomore year and our entire junior year i recall being a sophomore and thinking all this would be over before we were seniors and yet i was wrong we can all be honest online learning was a challenge it was terribly hard to get up to turn our chromebooks on while laying in bed trying not to fall asleep we all know we did it we fell asleep from time to time but it fills out if the world was sleeping on us and not giving us a fair chance to live these one and only high school years to the fullest however online gave us a chance to try new things it gave me the opportunity to unlock my dancing side thanks to miss sussex i can confidently say i am one of the best dancers at moon valley [Applause] trying not to look at the negatives and finding positives was difficult but with my best friend amari we got through it and i hope all of you found those people friends or adults to help you along this uncharted path omari and i would throw the ball every chance we got trying to make the best of our free time covet gave us we prepared for football season with ambitions to win more games unfortunately we all know how that went but i can stand here today and tell you that the hard work paid off i'm living out one of my childhood dreams which is to play college football i sincerely hope you have all found a way to live out your childhood dreams coven may have taken away so much of these past few years but dreams are something that it can never diminish mumbai gave me a chance to succeed and i will forever be grateful with both of my brothers graduating from the same school i had big shoes to fill and trust me i was reminded i'm isaiah sauzak's brother every day senior year wasn't easy but here we are as one class we are finally graduating the teachers have helped us keep us bonded together despite all the odds stacked against us thanks to teachers and coaches like miss sarafini miss rabb and coach maldonado i was able to leave my mark in the valley and i genuinely hope you felt as you did too i'm grateful for these people as they have helped shape me into the man i am today in pond recently i felt apprehensive whenever i thought of finishing school and starting a new chapter but standing here today after going through this unpredictable high school experience i am filled with excitement to venture into another world and offer all i have i hope you feel the same way i appreciate you for having faith in me as your student body president it has been a true honor thank you [Applause] moon valley high school confers its highest academic honors by designating the top one percent of the graduating class i'm pleased to present the three students who hold the highest academic ranking in this class of 270 members these students will graduate tonight with highest distinction wearing gold medallions i ask them to please stand as i call their names denisia lovato [Applause] isaac prentice [Applause] joseph gutierrez villa [Applause] congratulations i would also like to acknowledge those students who are ranked academically in the top 10 of this class they are wearing red cords this evening while i will not present them to you individually let me draw your attention to their names which are marked in your commencement program and ask you to applaud their accomplishments as honor graduates [Applause] please also note that any student that received a cumulative score of 22 or higher on their a.c.t exam are being recognized this evening with an a.c.t scholar medallion please help me congratulate these students for their hard work [Applause] lastly please also note those students wearing a red white and blue honor cord this evening these students will be entering the military upon graduation would you please show your appreciation for these graduates as well [Applause] at this time we will hear from our three members of the top one percent [Applause] welcome friends family and all who have supported my fellow peers in their endeavors i am denise lovato a proud representative of this very class gazing at the moon valley graduating class of 2022 i am inspired collectively we survive the tomorrows of adolescence and the strains of life-threatening circumstances here we all are despite the strenuous growing pains our generation uniquely experienced and uniquely conquered i hold immense pride knowing that i share these experiences with this particular cohort and am exhilarated watching the excitement and potential reflect off each and every one of your faces as we prepare to thrive in new environments and venture into new challenges i know when i recounted my experiences as a moon valley rocket i remember the moments that got me to this very position i always had goals to perform the absolute best i could while within the confines of a classroom and other school sanctions and i'm so extremely grateful for the support i garnered from mentors and peers alike it is with no doubt that it could not have been half of the strong-willed person i am without him that generosity from teachers that came in forms of writing last minute recommendations staying beyond contracted hours to ensure i was successful or even just reassuring my racing mind that eventually i would thrive and be exactly where i needed to be without that unique support that can only come from moon valley faculty i would have missed out on the opportunities that would take me anywhere i was willing to work for these four years created admissions to over of 20 of the top colleges all throughout the nation ranging from coast to coast after an insane and anxious amount of pouring into facts and details to plan my following years it is with an esteemed honor that i begin the fall at the university of southern california there [Applause] i will be majoring in accounting and business and work to receive my corporate law degree i am most proud of my tenacity and my capabilities that brought me to this very moment but it's with great privilege that i commemorate those who helped form them i would like to acknowledge my sisters and my cousins to whom have brought me much joy and vivacity to my childhood my father who has been nothing short of my cheerleader and has connected me to loving people and my mother who has been the backbone of my aspirations in the fuel to my fire the friendships and mentorships i have formed on campus have established my wild ambitions and will carry beyond my teenage years into my careers memories and future milestones i know that all of my fellow rockets are just as thrilled as i am to begin our own lives and show the world what we're made of as we part ways and establish new memories i hope we all take joy in the connections we have made here and find unity in the shared laughter in chem lab or small groups in english and especially home games learn to be grateful for every opportunity to make a mistake and create your own life story relish what was once had and celebrate for all to come congratulations rockets [Applause] good evening everyone my fellow classmates as well as teachers faculty friends and family who have made it here tonight my name is isaac prentice and i'm honored to stand before you all as someone who represents our class of 2022.

i imagine many of you had feelings of nervousness and excitement you are being presented with a new challenge in a new environment with new people class of 2022 not only did you survive high school you embraced and conquered those challenges abraham lincoln said the best way to predict your future is to create it class of 2022 i challenge all of you to create a future of greatness over the last four years you have shown bravery resiliency and success you experience success in the classroom during competition and on stage your final high school achievement is impressive as a class you have earned over 8 million dollars in scholarships and grants [Applause] graduates your accomplishments will leave a lasting legacy at moon valley high school i wish you continued success as you strive to reach your personal and professional goals always work hard be kind and take care of one another on behalf of the faculty staff and administration at moon valley high school we wish you continued success congratulations class of 2022 [Applause] we now will get to listen to a piece from our talented moon valley symphony orchestra [Music] so [Music] um [Music] member reichs could you please join me at the podium it is my pleasure as principal of moon valley high school to certify that these students have met the requirements for graduation as set forth by the state of arizona and the glendale union high school district accordingly i present this class to ms pam reich's governing board member of the glendale union high school district miss rice i respectfully request that you accept these graduates and that you and mr bowler confer diplomas upon them as a member of the governing board of the glendale union high school district and by the authority vested in me by the constitution and laws of the state of arizona i accept and confirm that the moon valley high school class of 2022 has met the requirements for graduation ms salyer please present the graduates to receive their diplomas [Applause] in order for the ceremony to belong to each graduate it must belong to them all therefore our senior class and faculty request that all guests guests act with courtesy avoiding excessive cheering when names are called so that each graduate's name may be heard clearly by everyone will the first row of the class of 2022 prepare to come forward [Applause] aidan harrison denisia lovato [Applause] marisol cemental [Applause] micah calvin dean southwick [Applause] sarah zavala bridget romari siobhani herrera isaac prentice jennifer haney joseph gutierrez villa andrea [Applause] rodriguez amy gutierrez alejo [Applause] delaney thompson stephen beatty haley war olivia monroe amy stevens matthew renninger jocelyn reagan gutierrez aaliyah hennerberg sarah rafat kylie farmer cedra shaheen brian arreola olivia bailey lacy jones shams alhamandani robert banks arrest brandon kitchen chanel montejas alyssa quintero lane reichard [Applause] fiona galen rasco tawny gomez [Applause] albert placencio taylynn booker xavier amada nick kreiner victor garcia kyra pruitt bliss joy [Applause] jacqueline freeman [Applause] khadija abdi [Applause] alexis carrasco [Applause] vicky pham tatiana saleh [Music] jaden abby adrian deleon [Applause] warren schumann jose hernandez grace morgan [Music] [Applause] tunde akinosho michaela luker [Applause] jalen lacy nathalia islava hannah darnell carly hare [Applause] aylin lada rivera scott campbell [Applause] lizzie chavez see us morgan pierce noemi camacho beltran matthew cruzak [Applause] sierra castillo marissa delgado ruiz patrick castro evelyn sarrakanja martin estrada garrett maurice [Applause] carlos castillo crystal soto olivas eddie ceballos john walker pablo avitia renteria ismail perez casey gatewood [Applause] bernie sarat shanandra litsui [Music] naeli ochoa adelia carroll tiana wilson zoe daisy roxanna palma san vicente julieta gomez kevin perez aaliyah hersey [Applause] dominic nunes michaela [Applause] earls dylan wilster nova nova alexandria relis victoria davenport cesar jimenez easton bowers abigail osorio robles jordan lemons alessandra palomares roman vodka grace ramirez ochoa cody brandt gabba mabiere [Applause] elizabeth grace guerrero ulysses rivera corona [Applause] jabari jones angel miranda ortega aaron lopez luis valenzuela matthew camacho deshay moore [Applause] brianna campbell ezekiel muniz kendrick fischer adrian satterwhite angel johnson nevaeh lopez tyler bort plasik amber meeks cody juarez lopez lana charmouk [Applause] alexis johnson ruben vivalva delgado [Applause] isabella gonzalez riva sliwa aaliyah kinney cordell outrage victoria celso gonzalez stephanie olson rosalie yellow latavia mendoza zoe cedillo [Applause] jada neely alexis carroll antonio roybal michael robert bailey the third my taurus michael learned kyrie henrich clara rios jaden domingo ashton wright jeremy dreer lauren pittman [Applause] evans chloe slider alec jock jose orianna raul burgos abner ramirez [Music] sebastian bueno brian torres gonzalez jose angel coral enriquez tristan valdepena [Applause] ricardo garcia contreras [Applause] nicholas nikula yahir espinosa christine simon kevin blanco alexander ryder michelle piedra cusick losandro nieblas sofia franco emily cerna thomas harris [Applause] isabella marie sanchez hung huang arendando [Applause] toliver gabriel glidewell samantha perez jordan burries serena sealy james huey arturo vicente rivas willard bort [Applause] emeline marsacci [Music] kai lewis heidi sharp a rope qual john zeista amari angel blue eyes [Applause] gregory lynn aurelies flores hagan sears carla alvarez vasquez sebastian regino [Applause] jasmine delgado joseph taylor seth baldock caden ramage pierce atwell ethan tan brianna lopez [Applause] dean weldy tobias diaz alondra rodriguez ventura maximilian beltran kimberly palacios joseph rafael gutierrez eber rowland leah anderson dania pacheco jaden beverly jamina sanchez saira camacho pamela mcbride tatiana gomez mario reyes carson estelle jacob thomas alexis carrasco calderon shania sanchez ahmed al-jabiri kendra lopez ojeda jayden flores [Applause] paley wiese josiah flores carlos pina charles danes yusef sala mario cervantes ava schultz xavier fernandez [Applause] emma schultz aguirre julian ramirez charles akers sean robles jacob johnson montgomery roy [Applause] armando ramirez carame sandoval nicole soto [Applause] angelica munoz [Applause] yesenia ornelias [Applause] jessica lopez martinez ava retana estrada [Applause] oh [Applause] good evening faculty family friends and of course the class of 2022.

okay [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] now [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] ah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good afternoon you may be seated good afternoon buenos tardes parents family members students staff and distinguished guests welcome to the 2022 savannah high school commencement ceremony my name is mike pooley i'm a proud principal and i will be your master of ceremonies this afternoon today is a special day one we are excited to celebrate together this ceremony is both joyous and solemn occasion please let us remember to be courteous to those around us we need to be respectful to our seniors during the ceremony so no more air horns or noise makers please remain seated while filming and taking photos remember to keep the recording device at chest level to not impede the vision of others seated around you please keep the aisle or the walkway open throughout the ceremony today's ceremony is being live streamed and will remain on the district's youtube channel to view at your convenience it is so great that we can all be together today to celebrate the class of without further ado let this begin at this time i'd like to introduce amelie arista hernandez our asb president who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance after the pledge of allegiance please remain standing for our national anthem that will be performed by our very own savannah high school band amelie thank you mr pulley will the audience please rise for the pledge of allegiance place your right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible and liberty and justice for all please remain standing while the savannah band plans plays our national anthem [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign thank you amelie please remain standing before we begin this joyous occasion we would like to pause with a moment of silence for the students teachers families of rob elementary school in texas our hearts and thoughts are with you today and for the weeks to come please take a moment with me thank you you may be seated it's a beautiful sound to hear your metals jingle so exciting at this time i'd like to begin this ceremony by introducing our distinguished guests please welcome mr al jabbar president of the board of trustees [Applause] mr brian o'neill clerk to the board of trustees miss anne-marie randall trejo member of the board of trustees dr jared fried assistant superintendent educational services and mr brad jackson assistant superintendent human resources in addition i'd like to thank our teachers our administrators our support staff and our counseling staff who have supported this graduating class of 2022 let's give them a round of applause [Applause] now please welcome our first senior speaker miss chadera okarama thank you mr pulley good afternoon everyone on behalf of the class of 2022 i would like to welcome all faculty alumni friends family and distinguished guests to the savannah high school 2022 graduation ceremony to the class of 2022 we made it my name is chidera okorama your classmate friend and the person who's going to miss you all take a minute to soak in this moment and think of how far we have come as individuals and as a class we have lived through many cringeworthy moments the tick-tock era the woe and gorilla glue we experienced lockdowns at home and at school online learning in pajamas and supported one another in unprecedented times of the pandemic but most of all we survive the capstone despite all of the unforeseen circumstances this class has unquestionably been one of the most greatest and successful classes in the history of savannah high school and of course the most attractive a direct quote from joanna santos during the late night facetime call exactly two hours five minutes and 26 seconds before graduation our class has to be the most fortunate class in the past two years from being able to attend school dances to playing sports and engaging in in-person interactions with our friends and teachers and i agree we are all a living witness to our dedication and commitment to excellence because we made it here many decorated with these cords sashes and stoles reminding them of their personal accomplishments graduates you are all meant for greatness and we must try to be hopeful and not give up easily while we attempt to change the world for the better as harriet tubman once said every great dream begins with a dreamer always remember you have within you the strength the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world let us embrace this new change that is about to be bestowed upon us as we enter the real world on with all of the knowledge gained at savannah high like in math class where you learned that y equals mx plus b in science class we found out that mitochondria is known as the powerhouse of cell in english class miss venezuela helped to analyze various william shakespeare's writing and all of these things well you know are what adults often talk about in their daily lives i have had one unforgettable experience here at savannah i'm going to miss all the amazing teachers staff lunch ladies custodians and friends that i've made along the way and i would personally like to express my heartfelt appreciation to mr olivas and ms stew for their unwavering support and guidance it has been said before and do believe in today when i say this you and i all of us are capable of changing the world for the better you can accomplish anything you set your minds to so let us step out into the real world and embrace it with open arms but before we all do ask yourself what am i leaving behind what is my legacy what impacts have i made in this community of ours for those that i've known on a personal level and those that i've not yet been fortunate to meet i will be forever curious to know what accomplishments you've accomplished and where life has taken you a decade from now for those that have only listened to part of my speech without falling asleep remember this of me i enjoy long romantic walks to the fridge class of 2022 best of luck y'all [Music] thank you chadera please welcome our second class senior speaker miss ivana marlejo [Applause] thank you mr pulley it is with a great honor that i welcome you all today i welcome all students staff and family members of savannah high school we are gathered here today to celebrate the end of our high school career thank you to the teachers and staff who saw our potential before getting the chance to grow into it and thank you to our parents who never lost faith in us when we needed it the most thank you to our loved ones who unfortunately could not be here today many of us have gone through many losses this year and i would just like to congratulate you on being here today we watch each other flourish from teenagers to adults and live moments that will soon become memories it seems like just yesterday we were only freshmen longing for this moment to come the upperclassmen of our time once told us enjoy high school because of time time flies this year we got the pleasure of being those upperclassmen trying to give out the same piece of advice in the blink of an eye we are ready to step into the next chapter of our life every decision we have made for the past 13 years has led us up to now take pride in this moment as you have all earned to walk across this stage we leave our campus not only as peers but as one big family the experience at savannah high school has been surreal we have made friendships that will last us a lifetime and we come across teachers that taught us more than just lessons in a classroom we were hit with the tragic event halfway through our sophomore year with kobe taking more than a year and a half away from us to be here and enjoy this last year has been nothing more than exciting this is perhaps the last time we will all be together as one and i wish you nothing but the utmost success in life i'm so proud to have come across such an exemplary group of individuals continue to leave your mark as we all did this school year this is only the beginning to what we call the rest of our lives you have all shown personal growth and character development i see it and i applaud you many people will never know what it was like to live through a time so harsh like we did an event that will soon be put into history books we survived it in the midst of this exciting moment let's take a second to remember the struggles we have endured to get here getting here has been nothing short of hard work many of us struggled getting through school online and i was sadly one of those people i got a taste of what it was like to earn money and i lost i lost the vision i had once created for myself the consequences of my actions caused me to start off my senior year at gilbert high school the hardest part was accepting the help when i needed it the most with the amazing support i received from both campuses i got the chance to come back and walk with my class i did more than enough to be able to come back to savannah and graduate with my class i had created many goals and i got the support to reach them working hard for all of my credits i dug myself out of the hole i initially put myself into taking advantage of every opportunity i was given and doing the most with my time i joined things i joined clubs i got involved with career fairs and i did more than enough to come back home finishing school at gilbert would have been the comfortable solution but i am no longer looking for comfortable i was looking to get back it is not the struggle that's important but the lesson you take from it having to prove not only to yourself but to the people around you that if you could be great in one place you could be great anywhere it was a very hard adjustment coming back to savannah stepping back onto the home i initially failed in i could not self-sabotage myself knowing the amount of work i put into coming back i'm here to tell you that no matter what it took to get here every struggle is different and every struggle is real i hope you take with you today the satisfaction of knowing that you pushed through every obstacle and succeeded mark twain once said the two most important days of your life are the day you're born and the day you find out why this is just the beginning of your journey continue on and remember the beauty behind the struggle is what shapes you as an individual wherever life takes you from this point in on find your purpose and leave your legacy be the brightest light in the room and be curious of the ideas you are yet to discover fascinate yourself with the idea of you today we become savannah graduates the home of the rebels is now home to our future doctors athletes entrepreneurs and artists pursue any pathway you love and enjoy what you do for the rest of your lives every single one of your experiences has been different here at savannah high school for whatever reason we chose to become rebels four years ago today we throw up our red caps and say we did it congratulations to you the class of 2022 [Applause] thank you ivana cedar and ivana both spoke so eloquently about their educational journey while at savannah high school savannah high school is truly an amazing one-of-a-kind school because of our committed and caring teachers and staff members again at this time i'd like to recognize and acknowledge the savannah faculty and staff for their dedication in preparing our students these last four years the class of 2022 is a special class to me i have seen them grow and flourish since our days some time ago over at brookhurst junior high school you have all had an incredible ride to get to this point and i could not be more proud of you this year back in person has been quite remarkable and i know many of you enjoyed it to its fullest you have had to navigate through many challenges of high school that not many of others had faced over the course of the year i was able to witness your kindness and your compassion for one another for your families and for our school community the class of 2022 is in a class of its own and i'd like to recognize several student accomplishments from this amazing class it is now time to recognize some of the academic awards our seniors have accomplished seniors as i announce the academic award which is symbolized by your sash or your accord or your medal please stand to be recognized with applause those that earned the career technical educational pathway please stand [Applause] those that earned the award for dual enrollment please stand you can remain standing those that earn the award of seal of by literacy please stand [Applause] those that have earned google certificates please stand [Applause] those who have earned the state seal of civic engagement please stand those are awarded a through g accomplishments please stand [Applause] and those that have received academic honors seniors who've earned a 3.5 or above gpa [Applause] congratulations seniors one more round of applause for all these awesome accomplishments [Applause] so proud of you all again this class of 2022 is ready for life college and for your next chapter whether it's career it is evident in your capstone that you did several weeks ago many of you shared about your educational journey and how education is working for you we are proud of you as you continue your journey some of you are entering the workforce others will be attending community colleges and others are attending universities no matter where you are headed you have all gained and developed so many skills which we call the five c's and with them you will take on the world students as you reflect on your four years at savannah high school one thing is clear during your years of high school you have been challenged and you may have struggled at times but with this struggle came the opportunity to learn from each other from your colleagues from your peers your teachers and those that care most about you what you learned was how to persevere how to persist and ultimately how to succeed class of 2022.

some could tell time some do not know but three letters or three numbers and cheryl always guarantees parents at back-to-school nightmares don't worry i know where they're at and i'm going to take them from where they're at and get them where they need to be get ready for first grade and cheryl does that you know and teaches other teachers exactly how to do that she is an inspiration to many of us she leads by example the one thing that i found out when i first got here was you know cheryl was not only a teacher very involved in community but she was an emt and she was very slow to kind of like tell me you know what last night was all about and then after a while she would share some stories yeah i got a call i got all about 3 30.

uh field day is happening for all grades k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 it's all on the calendar every week we're gonna send the messages out to the parents to just keep them informed the pto is doing an amazing job supporting all these things just yesterday the board received the parents received you know we're gonna limit the type of food that comes into the building for these days you know italian ice and water outside um we just have so many children with allergies and food allergies and nut allergies that we just want to be careful with the food coming in but there are many wonderful things going on in the community uh north south is for um the anderson family both those children graduate from here uh their parents did a lot to support our school and the last i heard from mayor beth friedel is we have a lot over 600 people signed up and that was over a week ago that you told me in that number um i'm sure it's growing to ted's point about the bike safety i'm definitely going to talk to chief wilson about that tomorrow because we have scheduled a water safety program for fox 370 for next tuesday um timely right after memorial day and talking about border safety but uh i think in our community water safety is very important but bike safety is equally as important they ride their bikes they skateboard and you know people live in this community because of easy access to the beach and the parks and the way the kids get there is their bicycle sorry i think that's you know to let me do that how i squeeze it into this calendar i don't know what we will figure out a way because it is important to do our graduation yeah mr savior said to me today the tent uh outside is going up tomorrow and so all our activities are planned from the side uh and mr sabri said to me today and what do we do for rains you know we don't we don't have rain dudes no the calendar every day there's something happening in this building so i assure him that we're not going to have anyway he's happy that i could do that you could assure me that because some things may have to be moved inside you know i can't move the field aside but some of the things that we want to do outside we may have to move it in here and it's just not the same i said to sherry when we were walking into this room tonight you know do you believe board members that a year ago we were doing all our board meetings out the courtyard okay and then she was like really oh yes we were doing all our board meetings at that corridor so we'll do our best so that our children experience a great entry school year it has been a challenging year for our staff for our children i've said that at every board meeting but endings as i shared with the lord at nauseum endings and beginnings are the most difficult school year or beginning a school year september october and may and june are some of the most challenging times for all of us and so understand that we are in that right now may and june the anxiety kids are feeling uh the anxiousness if i'm an eighth grader like karen uh moving on to high school or just leaving my teacher that i love cheryl shock or carrick leaving that classroom going to that unknown place all these things impact children and we want to make sure that that transition is smooth for them and we are having those discussions with the kids now so that is my report and i just want to say all the board reports were excellent um all of you did an excellent job on the thought like the things that we can go through over the last month thank you chris you're welcome but it's nice to hear that we're going back to normalcy here in school i mean it's unfortunate you know kurt reported about the cinderella not having the father delivered the mother-son dance but um we're going back so we'll get there we'll get there and um oh we did chris the um the blazer and uh the sun love it dance um yes that was the combination mothers and sons and dad supporters from max gave us six nights five percent of the proceeds so he was wonderful that he you know when he heard we couldn't get a place to house 375 to 400 people and so he opened it up and many families to the manager thank you that's very nice i actually went with myself so um that was nice and so oh does anyone have any questions or final answers um yesterday's events everyone else who has um i did receive some questions today pertaining to our security and i really appreciated having chief olsen have additional officers here today it was reassuring as it hit me when we pulled up this morning i know we have a full-time resource officer in our school that officer armed officer armed okay that was one question the second one was um prior to covid i believe there was a security reason why we were all entering through one door and we've changed that since then trying to spread the folks out are really thinking about how for me this morning we discussed that and i said because of the number of people i have all those locations i'm not putting you know 300 children in this room for 20 minutes they come in those free entrances and go right to their room and i have at least four faculty at all those locations welcome the children in and i said that those three entrances are working out way better than everybody coming in and you know stay in one area so like i said it was a new way coca has taught us the new way is so much better teachers say they love the children coming right into their room so it is working out the traffic flow uh everything is just so much better than our mobile phone once the students are in the building and the doors are closed one once the children enter the building they go immediately to their classroom the three tours are have faculty there until 8 25 every morning after that as they're running late they come to the main office but once there's only one way to get yes and even parents like dropping off we started this particular child we got their sneakers the notebook lunch they just come into the foyer they don't even come to the building there's there's a cart there okay one two three four five the parents drop the lead so there's not much interaction in the main office distracting secretaries from their room and they can't walk right into you they have to get busted if they want to come in but we have very few people getting busted if you have to drop stuff along right there so it is all work thank you more questions we'll move on to action items uh all items below are upon the recommendation of the superintendent uh curriculum and programs kirk thank you pain yes okay mr becker yes dr ambrosia yes mr stone yes mr milan yes mr vitale yes mr walt yes and next we have district operations ted uh so under district corporations i'd like to move uh yes next we have policy shown sharing policy i'd like to move c1 that would approve the following policies and regulations for the first reading second okay yes and human resources through d28 yes yes mr vitale yes mr wall yes and at this time we have visitors business visitors are permitted to comment on agenda and non-agenda items at this time i just wanted to say thank you to mrs p and miss schwartz i thought they did a great job for our parent group they're dynamic and informative so we really enjoyed and we wanted to thank them publicly and then ms farlson thank you for the last suggestion that we made at the last board meeting regarding informing parents through email about the good samaritan center coming in and giving an assembly so thank you for that communication because it really did open up and elicit that discussion with our children so we um totally appreciate you taking that into consideration thank you for giving up that's yeah it was great because like we got feedback from the parents and they were like you know able to sit down with their their children and have a discussion because even though our kids were coming home saying they had an assembly what was done that the assembly wasn't really clear so by having that email come out it was informative so yeah there's a vacuum for that that was great um and then the two things sean that i wanted to tell you uh in our district we have go guides that we can i could share um that we give to our substitutes and to people who utilize our facilities for sporting events and it also shares like where the aed devices are if someone was to have cardiac arrest or where the fire safety is in the building so i can share that with administration so you guys don't have to reinvent the wheel kind of thing if that's if you're interested in that and then our district also uses hipster so i can put you in contact with our guidance department director if you are interested in seeing how that operates i know our family is greatly appreciated all the information that we're receiving thank you and we have um the next thing we have is payment of bills can we pay the bills tonight i'd like to make a motion at the board overwatch's payment of the following week 2022 list and the secretary's authorizer warrants the treasure in the total amount of one million four hundred twenty two thousand ninety nine dollars and 83 cents yes [Applause] the brielle board of education shall conduct a closed executive session pursuant to the legal exception prescribed by njsa 104-12 this session will be held after the board be it further resolved that the minutes of the executive session will be released when the need for confidentiality in accordance with njsa 10 4-2 legal number applause [Music] there won't be any action taken at this meeting and um okay my

it's a four-week program beginning on monday uh june 27th and ending on friday july 22nd we'll also be running a summer enrichment program three weeks in august beginning i believe august 1st and those programs require a small registration fee which allows us to provide programs in marine science mr helm i believe you're teaching that again this year also in cooking uh graphic arts uh so if parents are interested in registering their students i believe it's open in grades three through eight a registration form is online and we did have students hand carry those forms home and we have been running that program for a number of years so uh it has been very very successful uh just a reminder to our parents who might be watching the stream tonight that we are doing and continuing our re-registration uh our residency re-registration for grades current grades 3 6 and 10 and once we finish the re-registration of those grades which is required to be completed by july 31st we will continue on to other grade levels so that's just a reminder if parents have questions about the registration they can contact their child's school principal a reminder graduation is june 24th our middle school will be graduating at 10 a.m at the high school field and the high school will be graduating at 6 p.m at the high school field so hopefully with good weather we'll be outside as we were last year so that's friday june 24th i do want to mention to the board that you know that dr tracy severns has been doing our long-range strategic plan she's met with many of our staff members students parents principals myself and our director of curriculum uh mrs calabrese and mrs severs will be here on june 29th actually we'll be doing a a zoom meeting with her and at that time she will share the results of her investigation in terms of what we could do better what we do well and so on and so forth and suggestions for the future moving forward so she will be here june 29th which is our our last board meeting in june i do want to make mention that each year we're mandated by mandated by the state to post our hiv grades which is how we do in terms of investigating bullying investigations those grades you have a copy in your folder tonight but they're also posted to the website for parents to see and as we do every year our scores are very very high because i have to commend our principals and our staff members who serve on our committees that they do a great job in doing investigations responding to allegations of hiv and hopefully we'll continue to to achieve the grades that we've been getting but that is available on our website if parents would like to view that report last night we were on the high school field for our academic awards i want to thank mrs cassano our supervisor of guidance who did a great job organizing that program and of course i know the students last night got many congratulations but i also want to congratulate them on behalf of the board for their recognition last night and as always it was well attended and it seemed this year that we had many more local vendors individual families i know dr pantaliano gives an award a scholarship uh for her family as she did last night so uh it was really a great night i do want to mention june 6th on monday night at 5 p.m we will be on the high school field again to recognize all of our students who took part in athletics this year usually what we do is we divide it into seasons but because of covert this year we're going to recognize all of our senior students uh this year so it'll be monday june 6th 5 p.m if you're available please come to the high school field okay at that time at this time before we look at the consent agenda do we have any committee reports oh i'm sorry mr helm yes yes absolutely absolutely thank you sir thank you members of the board so again ladies and gentlemen uh sarah kim come on [Applause] champion up you and this is your united states national merit award thank you so much great job good work frank you might take a picture he's our photographer for tonight thank you all right i'm going to sneak in the back here you guys have my belly he thinks like me thank you which camera do we look at all right thank you thank absolutely now that all four of the award keys are here tonight ever since i was a kid i've always heard adults say these kids today these kids today and they're saying it in a way that saying they're not like when i was a kid when i was a kid it was tough we had to do this we had to do that and these kids that they have it too easy if that were true then ever since cain and abel we've been going downhill so this is obviously a good example of how these kids today are doing outstanding work and the awards night last night was another example in cliffside park and in most schools all schools we have example after example after example of these kids today continuing to do outstanding work and i'm very confident that these four young women especially the fact that in technology and science today we say we need to get more women into technology well here we are uh that they're just doing outstanding work and i'm really very proud of you as a long-time resident a lifetime resident of cliffside park and in nearly 50 years of education seeing ut here tonight so thank you very much for representing cliffside anyone else okay i'm going to answer committee reports first okay i just if anyone wants a copy of the agenda it's it's it's up here do we have any committee reports no we're building in grounds as you know it's going to enter into our busy uh time uh we've uh we had a special meeting awarding uh uh bids for groups uh bids for uh stairwell doors uh uh some uh pointing uh office free modifications at the high school so it'll be a busy summer and i know lou has put out a spreadsheet on other projects that are going on in the district and i'm always they say our buildings we know they're a little older but they are in mint condition and uh kudos to the uh staff here and to uh mr roman gino and luau uh that's pretty much it i know the gym is pretty much pretty much substantial completion today i received a letter from uh image from chero of a plaque that's going to go up a bronze plaque with the remodification of the gym and all the board members that were on the board last year uh their names will be on that uh plaque and that was a recommendation also to dr ken to do that and it's being done you showed it to me today and it and it looks great so kudos to everybody so great job it's a beautiful the gym is absolutely stunning and now the only thing will you assure us we're going to put new lights in there right here next uh yeah it's on my docket okay so we're going to hold you to it we'll be watching absolutely i learned from joel years ago baby stuff yeah small bites but we took a big bite this year so yeah but joe's point is uh that is the uh kind of a must-have so we'll get that done and will you be sharing the latest pictures on facebook and instagram for their new pictures i have to i'll uh i'll get a picture from shiro and post them on the instagram account yes okay the flaw i don't know if you had a chance to take a look at it when you're there when you're there and look at it when you're physically standing on it it's pretty darn impressive it's absolutely beautiful and no dead spots maybe on the 6th you can give the board members a tour if we're here for the athletic awards maybe we can get a tour yeah i wouldn't mind coming a little early for the athletic rewards to get a tour at the gym on the 6th yeah sure that's okay sounds good june 6 right june 6th monday any other committee reports if not then i would like to look at the consent agenda or just uh highlight a couple of items um as we do each month uh page two we are approving uh professional development for staff members uh who are getting reimbursed for travel expenses our registration fees and so on and so forth you'll notice that we have a couple of staff members who are taking some ap courses in the summer to complete certifications or to take refreshers i commend those staff members that are doing that as part of their professional uh development on the bottom of page two we are doing some uh we are transferring as we do each year some staff members i just want to make note maria capano who's been a school nurse for us at school number four will be transferring over to school six the middle school these transfers are effective september first in fact our new nurse that we hired recently is transitioning right now with mrs capano and she's doing a great job transitioning our new nurse into school 4 where she'll be taking over julia gionata who's been a full-time title 1 teacher will be moving over to full-time grade 6.

you know you mentioned hey there's other there are other costs there's transportation uh there's you know there's ot there's pt potentially there's nursing potentially um you know but the fact is if those children came to asdb we'd be paying for those anyway right i mean if they came to our program uh at the ptsd campus we'd be responsible for transportation still we'd be responsible for nursing we'd be responsible for pt ot and because the desert voices under the contract is just an extension of the campus right i mean it's it's it's a it's by contract an extension of our own campus uh is that is that correct recommend it yes correct in that um we would also of course have to provide those services however the difference being all those services that desert voices would be contracted out which is always going to carry a higher price tag than if we have our own hanal staff that's already providing it to other children in terms of the transportation we would have contract transportation we don't have we have most of the vast majority of our transportation for fbc uh and desert voices but primarily fbc because our head that hasn't been again there's only been a couple of children there this year but with fbc they're third-party contractors or we're paying parents to transport or we're paying districts and in but for for these children that are going to desert voices now it's a very small number but we're using private contractors for that we are paying one parent we are paying a district and i i don't recall what the third one was i have i would have to look okay do you have an idea and are we doing any other ancillary services um we are needing uh psychology and one of the reasons that the one child already left was because we could not offer um ot and the other student is needing uh a comprehensive eval including ot and we don't have that either okay i mean do you have any um information about what what those total costs would would be i mean worse again it's there's a difference between going through getting it from a contractor and getting to a full-time employee that's that's elsewhere on the campus i understand that but i mean how much of a difference is that at desert voices it's going to be nominal of course right now because of the very few number of students um but i can tell you that um added to the cost is the time um and the likelihood of probably not finding someone we've had an open ot position at ptsd for months and months and months and months and so much so the pressure on the ot we had that remain just left so now we have no ot's so so we'd have to use contractors in-house we can't find staff so right but the issue is we're responsible for it either way whether they're desert voices or whether at the ptsd campus or providing services uh we're responsible for it either way no um again i want you to keep that 23 um metric in mind you know the the cost per student that's been reported to us for last year and that was on the agenda this is on the agenda it's on board docs um for preschool is forty thousand seventy eight dollars per student um that's our average cost per student for 96 students in the agency um so we have a contract where we pay 23 000 to desert voices to place whoever goes there if no one goes there we can send zero nothing happens we send zero we don't get any voucher money we don't spend any money that's it we get 10 students we get five students we get the voucher money we forward it on to those invoices we have to pay some ancillary services which we pay anyway our cost per student is still again 40 000 which is a bigger number than 23 000.

tonight i would like to rectify some statements that have been made about dysart school district myth number one dysart is a top heavy is top heavy with administrative costs per the arizona auditor general's report dysart spends 8.8 percent of its budget on administration it's one of the lowest percentages in the west valley and lower than the state average of 10.4 percent the truth is that in the last five years dysert has actually increased its classroom spending by four percent while lowering its administrative spending by four percent myth number two dysart is a low performing district the arizona department of education states that dysart's graduation rate is 92.7 much higher than the state average of 78 and if you look at the website it's higher than many of the districts in the west in the entire valley in 2016 36 percent of dysart students were proficient in ela that number rose each year to 42 percent in 2019 after the disruption of the pandemic in 2020 it did fall to 40 percent however that was still above the state average of 38 percent and still higher than most districts in the valley proficiency in math was 33 in 2016.

now despite having the spotlight for these few minutes i'd like to formally congratulate all of my fellow classmates regardless of what classes you took it took a substantial amount of dedication and persistence to get to where you are today especially given our unique circumstances of the past two years i've accomplished quite a few things in my four years here in moon valley especially among the engineering and cte fields i held the great honor of being the president of the robotics team and also won the showcase in the ace mentor program with the invaluable help of my teammates i had the opportunity to be a part of prestigious groups of individuals on multiple occasions such as our national honor society as well as spanish honors society it was here at moon valley that my passion for engineering and building things truly formed and from this passion it became a bit more clear to me what fields i should pursue after high school it's from this that i'm eager to say i plan to study biomedical engineering in college and pursue a career of that background [Applause] i realized that with time though the novelty of this very happy moment may subside uh you'll return to your daily lives and for many of you the achievements of a stranger likely won't be in the forefront of memories knowing this i but one thing to impart that i implore you to remember that being any one of you can achieve nearly anything with enough dedication and perseverance but also with supportive people to encourage you onward i've had quite a few people who failed that role and i'm forever grateful for the people i call my friends the people who made high school somewhere i could feel at home i'm thankful for all the teachers who are willing to put up with some of our classes craziness and give us what we needed to succeed and finally i'd like to thank my parents and all the other parents who showed their support for us for many of us we couldn't have done it without you finally to all my fellow 2022 class graduates i'd like to once again congratulate you on this major life milestone and i wish everyone here the best of luck after high school in a new chapter of our lives thank you hello my name is joseph juani gutierrez viela welcome to everyone who has attended this ceremony and i thank everyone for coming out and supporting the class of getting to where i am now has been quite the adventure there's been the late nights the endless stress and the why did i ever pick ap classes despite this there's been moments of triumph the opportunities to follow my dream as well as the lack of regret that i now feel however none of this could have been possible without my family and friends furthermore without my family being there with me the whole way through the good and the bad i couldn't have done it and a special thanks to my mom who always helped out whenever she could and was my motivator for whenever i felt hopeless and worn out i would also like to give a shout out to all of my teachers who helped me get this far without their wisdom and guidance i could have never acquired the knowledge which helped me to achieve this goal it goes without saying that there are two people who have done the work and i've also earned the honor of presenting a speech that may or may not have also been written at the last minute so let's give a round of applause to isaac apprentice and denise alvarado [Applause] also congratulations to these people in front of me you all made it this far so you should all be proud of yourselves now it's the chance to take the next step and do what you feel is right no matter what that is i wish you all the best in life and hope to see you where you want to be however despite everything that i've just said there'll always be something that piece of the puzzle that doesn't quite fit this question will get your heart pumping in the end was it all worth it i sure hope so thank you all [Applause] thank you students before we hear from our choir we would now like to share a short video as a farewell to our graduates [Music] felt alive [Music] logical [Music] without you my friend and i'll tell you all about it when i see you again see you again we've come a long way from where we all began it when i see you again [Music] july [Music] oh we are right [Music] i am [Music] think of the tender things [Music] forget about me [Music] will you stand above me [Music] oh [Music] have you ever felt like nobody was there have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere have you ever felt like you could disappear like you could fall and no one would hear [Music] so let that lonely feeling wash away cause maybe there's a reason to believe you'll be okay cause when you don't feel strong enough to stand you can reach reach out your hands [Music] they'll take you home [Music] you [Music] you will be found there's a place [Music] if you only say the word [Music] is [Music] when you need a friend to carry you when you're broken on the ground you will be [Music] you will be [Music] is [Music] you are not alone [Music] [Applause] [Music] when you need a friend to carry when you're broken on the [Music] ground in your eyes again [Music] [Applause] you need [Music] you will be fine [Applause] we are most fortunate to be supported by a caring district administration and governing board governing board member pam reichs is with us this evening pam reich was elected in november 20 of 2008 she graduated from trevor brown high school and earned a bachelor of science degree in elementary education and a master's in educational leadership from northern arizona university she's a teacher in the washington elementary school district and is a proud parent of a moon valley high school graduate miss reichs has been an education advocate and a volunteer in the community for many years thank you for joining us for this special event also with us this evening is mr nate bowler mr bowler is the chief financial officer for the glendale union high school district thank you for being here as well [Applause] at this time may present board member reichs with special remarks to our senior class principal sawyer faculty graduates families and other honored guests it's truly a pleasure to be in your company on this very special day i appreciate having the honor of addressing the graduating class of moon valley high school class of 2022 just like you each of us has spent time learning at the proverbial university of life and will continue to do so for ever just like you each of us has also made the investment in an education just like you each of us has fallen down and gotten back up more than once most importantly each of us has had not only support from but gratitude for family friends and teachers just like you carry these experiences with you and let them guide you forward on your new journey as a high school graduate where you will be faced with many new choices including who and what you want to be for example will you be a doer or a talker will you make excuses or will you make things happen malcolm x said that education is our passport to the future for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today you have spent the last four years preparing for today and all of the tomorrows that will follow your education is the only thing you will work for that can never be lost or taken away from you no matter what just as was true in your high school career in your post-high school life you'll make mistakes and you'll face challenges but you have proven that you are adaptable and flexible hopefully you've learned that our lives are not our own our choices are our own but our consequences affect everyone around us graduating from high school is a prodigious milestone but it's not the end of your journey or your education just the beginning of another new exciting journey so many choices own them and make the most of your new beginning on behalf of the glendale union high school district governing board class of good luck and congratulations [Applause] this year we proudly celebrate moon valley's 55th graduating class i want you to take a moment and rewind to your first day of high school august of 2018.

my name is bridget ramadoy and it has been an honor to be your senior class president i'm very fortunate to be given the opportunity to speak in front of you all on the behalf of the senior class each year has been a different adventure from beginning to end during freshman year we came in not knowing what was going to hit us not knowing the hardships we would face along the way although senioritis is only meant to hit a senior year it hit a sophomore and junior year as well due to the circumstances freshman year was the only full coveted free year that we got it was a sneak peak of what a normal high school experience would have been for us but the rest of the years after that was nothing but webex meetings and doing homework in bed unexpectedly having to adapt to the routine of going to classes through a click of a mouse was no easy adjustment knowing that the classes above us were able to live out those once in a lifetime memories was something that never sat quite well with us feeling robbed of what could have been then we got the chance to try and make the most of what we had when we came back in person we got an attempt at a decent senior year however the transition to going back to somewhat of a normal school year wasn't so effortless either by the time we were given another shot at a regular year most of us were already on the verge of giving up i know i was trying to regain that school spirit and having that excitement of going to school events took us a minute to get used to again but eventually we got there we got friday night lights we got senior events we got a phenomenal assembly and we got a prom we made it out of this deep hole that was dug up for us unwillingly and made memories that some of the previous classes weren't able to live out for the last time but we lived it out for the first and last time we are the only class that have the seen best of both worlds we got to see the ups and downs of a restricted school year but we also experienced the ups and downs of a recovery school year in the end we got through both which takes a lot of power strength and grit whether it was the people who supported us along the way or the idea of having some pretty clean flicks in our cap and gown whatever reason that may be it led us here it led us to experience this last accomplishment as a whole we are the last class to have known what high school was like but that the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not we're going to see our friends walking in the halls not only with the pandemic but also with the continual protests going on on every block for some of us the first time we saw our peers since the pandemic was at a protest going into this year i had no expectations this year any opportunity or chance that was out of my comfort zone i took even though i was shaking in my boots half of the time my three best friends sam serena and emma had become my rock we took in any challenge and faced it head-on having that group of friends you can trust is what makes every step a bit less nerve-wracking including this next big step we're all about to take once we walk out the stadium i hope that you all find that same company to help you along the way as well four years can do a lot to a person it may change them for the better or it may change them for the worse i can tell just by looking at all our faces and by seeing the proudness within our eyes that we have changed for the better we have grown to be the best versions of ourselves and we aim to make our school a better place for others to enjoy so on behalf of the senior class it is my pleasure to state with the help of class of 2022 new crash pads and the main gym along with ceramic tile art pillars will be added to the campus near the auditorium we look forward to this new addition to not only enhance the look of our school but to leave a mark for the graduating class to show our accomplishments and pride we have in our school we as a class have made an impact at the school and now we have the perfect gift to prove it this very moment will be the cherry on top of our high school journey graduation is a moment that will go down in history it's a moment i get to share with you all and i am so thankful to say in 20 years that we did this we made this happen together to end i would like to thank every single one of you for helping the class of 2022 to cross the finish line from parents and family friends and teachers we could never have succeeded on our own so let us take it in because we did it this is our moment congratulations class of 2022 [Applause] before hearing the benediction from our student body president i would like to give some brief instructions for exiting the arena parents and guests please remain seated while our graduates exit all graduates will exit the arena to collect their diplomas they will then meet their guests and family members in the lawn in front of the arena before you leave please make sure you have everything you came in with today at this time micah southwick student body president will offer the benediction [Music] [Applause] class of 2022 with our dedication grit and hard work we did it we prepared we are prepared to start our careers and seek out the best paths to lead us to our futures we are proud of we have had some of the best teachers who truly cared about us and taught us with passion they gave everything they had in hopes of molding a good a generation of people who would truly leave a mark on this world fellow graduates i've known many of you for a long time and i know that each and every one of you has something special to give something that will make others proud of our generation go out and be teachers doctors athletics pharmacists firefighters scientists policemen or whatever you want to be we all made it this far we all can tackle anything that crosses our path with that being said rockets this is the time we've all been waiting for let's move our tassels to the left [Applause] and celebrate the beginning of a new chapter in our lives congratulations exhausted 2022 we did it [Applause] thank you everybody i hope you have a great evening and a great night [Applause] hey [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] these guys tell me that you're ready and you're feeling

i was out from 11 until about 1 30 it was a really busy night and she's at school by seven o'clock after telling me she didn't get home until 2 30 or 3 o'clock i remember a couple years back and said sure i'm like what's the latest call you'll go on no one wants to be at school at seven o'clock in the morning she says uh 3 30 4 o'clock because after 4 o'clock you know i really got to get my head ready for school so here's somebody that you know as we know uh we talked about it at the pride of brielle the amount of calls i didn't write it down but the number of calls what is the number please tell us because some people that are watching don't i want to say in show career calls i know what was also talked about that night and cheryl would talk about it because if she ever had to go on a call where some mommy or daddy was sick someone's mommy or daddy needed you know help she would go into the house and the children of the house be like oh it's mrs shaw at my house you know not some stranger it's mrs shaw and she's my teacher she's been my teacher and she can take care of mommy and daddy so you know that makes it special when you're a teacher or an emt and you live in the community when there are emergencies the first thing we always think about is how are the children dealing with it and cheryl did the great balancing act of taking care of the emergency and then assuring the young children that their mommy and daddy would be okay or their grandmother grandfather because she's gone into houses where you know the grandma or grandpa are living there her classroom is just so welcoming you know whether it's you know every three weeks she's changing the decorations in the classroom like every three weeks i don't know how she does it and um she believes that uh kids abilities or their culture or wherever they come from that she embraces it and embraces uh him so well she works tirelessly with our administration guidance counselor child center therapist to ensure that her kids get that personalized service that they so during deserve pandemic cheryl was known to go to every child's house every single week and for some children multiple times a week all right it was it was tough during the pandemic and you know she might say i lived here it's a big deal no getting to every child's house two three times a week during the pandemic was was a big effort and she just wanted to ensure that her child her children didn't miss anything especially her kindergarten their story of pandemic she delivered books she delivered games she delivered school supplies pain markers anything they needed she brought to their house so that the child would not miss out on kindergarten and most people around the state around the country went how did kindergarten teachers do it behind the screen with five-year-olds and charlotte was exemplary and her uh making kids feel very good during the pandemic that they weren't in school and that she was still here for them beyond the classroom and beyond this community here's just a few things and it's just a few things that cheryl has done volunteered to do she's been a morning monitor for many many years and what morning monitor means is when the kids can't come in this is the door when children walk through the store and there was a time where everybody walked in this door but the children that remained in this room were pre-k through third grade and cheryl welcomed every single one of them and in september it might have been kids hanging on to her when they came in because they weren't ready to go to their classroom so it was that beautiful smile that beautiful welcome that she did every single morning she's been a cheerleading coach she's been a dance chaperone she's played in the faculty game yes she has she has cheered at the faculty games she's a drama assistant she's worked with missoula she was a big participant in our als challenge ice bucket pie in the face and i think she got the most money because people just wanted it pour stuff over right here kindergartners we raised a lot of money because of cheryl she started book buddies many many years ago with joanne our fifth grade in kindergarten company uh halloween parade she's second to none on the halloween parade maybe once behind joanna okay so joanne might be first but a strong second where the two just increased halloween and um the kids the easter egg hunt had the um wrecked park she always organized our firehouse trip getting kindergartners to walk to the firehouse and have that that experience and she always took charge of that the pumpkin contest the pumpkin trips to get the pumpkins uh field day special person's day mother's day two graduation cpr training for our entire staff i told you this was a few things dinosaur day she was in charge of i guess i know one of the first to welcome student teachers and as i said before technology into the classroom very involved in our pto our booster club real ed foundation cheryl you are a true inspiration and true educator your passion and love for learning is a great example to all of us like i said and this apple says she is not only the pride of brielle but she is also the private real school every single day [Applause] she's taught all kids this is her that little things that we do every day make the biggest changes for all of us it's clear that she's truly respected love admired by students colleagues the entire community she will continue to always motivate us and to be the best person that we could be if we look through the way she teaches and kindness compassion and love [Applause] [Music] if anyone has to leave to do homework thank you very much [Music] and now at this time visitors business visitors are permitted to comment on magenta items only at this time correspondence and we'll move on to committee reports um ted district operations uh there is no deportation get ourselves organized and um sure there was a meeting on on the 10th and just just to put things in perspective um madison response total involvement um 984 states um brielle's employment england's born 223 cents that that's about 23 of the top right so um we talk about the things we do here in reality we talk about the things we do for the classroom we talk about the things we do for extracurriculars um we we should keep in mind that mas1 minus one does that for their students which includes our students right sometimes sometimes i think we lose that um there's there's a little bit too much focus i'm not going to say too much but there's a there's there's nothing enough there's always a focus on the cost of tuition and and you know it gives people the impression that it's somewhat of a liability it's it's it's an absolute asset my my my uh with that said uh starting from starting the 10th grade mata squad is going to provide mental health awareness training and it's it's to uh um bring awareness to students to recognize certain symptoms in understood which could prove to be extremely valuable unfortunately recently had right so i'm sure that's going to be a very very big focus going forward something um relative to relative to the elementary school but because we're in elementary school and it it seems it seems to be worth mentioning that the mastermind police department during pe classes from grades five through eight um they're going to conduct and when when i say you know i'm not sure if this happened or done that you know but um to go to conduct bike safety classes um to discuss expectations uh and um the responsibilities of you know of being i think you know writing sometimes we take that kind of thing for granted but i thought it might be a i big it was very responsible and and then um worth bringing up here because you know right now i i don't i don't remember it yeah i'm sure we did or we thought about it or maybe maybe we'll consider doing it and you know having that type of program here because spring spring time summertime fights bikes galore bicycle and um not too too many helmets by the way um the field of the field house uh that thirty two thousand foot structure as i'm gonna be able to have that that they will weight room and bathroom bath facilities um that is slated to be completed supply chain issues and certain disagreements between the contractor and and the department this is very interesting directly adjacent to the football field there there there was an old building that used to be the biology lab right so we sort of walk outside to the bottom of the biology lab here you know that i'm about to take my analogy um walk back into the main building um when i say six seven eight years ago that building was renovated for a question about 170 000 um it is now called the alternative school and the um first time first time this has happened as a student graduated from the alternative school and and was accepted to 15 different colleges which is which is just [Music] um is putting together information for a reference referendum um that was stating the fact that they just finished one of the others not too too long ago the total cost of the referendum is going to be about 10 million 2 million of that is allocated to the high school and it's it take care of certain parts of the facility that really weren't able to be fit into the other referendums which includes uh locker rooms and bathrooms believe it or not believe it or not we we actually used to take showers there uh i i don't think because we're taking showers here in 25 years you know it's it's just not non-existent right there's going to be a bandwidth renovation roof replacements water heater and door hardware parking lot repavements field event upgrades such as pole vault high jump and shotgun shotgun so so um thank you they think that an awful lot going on very really positive stuff and uh that's my report about doing something similar here especially this time of year my report uh this tuesday made their first we're doing a water safety program for grades five through eight and so um i'm all through my report after talking with you paulson every day we have a hike we've had a lot of police officers here in the morning and then dismissal but that'll be the first thing you have said and that's what we did you know and jimmy arenas is here in our building right now because our police officer uh tiffany is at train so and he and they do our elite program so uh i definitely want to do it because we're averaging 200 bikes every day in school and i'm not averaging 200 films you know just and we have to implore parents you know because the helmets you know so so i i think that's very and the amount of bike riding on this table if i'm getting 200 bikes here every day of school you know it's going to happen in the summer i'll do the rest of my that i think that reports something that we could hear um the the mental health awareness training what's providing that no i i i i don't have any of those specifics but i would definitely find them you know this person you know is his feelings doing this or this person said that you should just just to be aware of issues which you know when we take the time to teach children the way that they learn not necessarily the way we learn which is usually cool people teach you know you have to teach meet them where they are and then just teach them the way that they learn because we you know all of us learn but we learn differently i i love that that you know i think it's awesome that that student was accepted to those colleges and i know that there's more to come with that so thank you to that report um and um so we'll move on to kirk curricular programs thank you valley uh we did have a meeting this month it was on the 17th and it lasted a little over an hour truly not to get off topic too much but before i give my report i was just hoping that we could take a few minutes maybe in silence in light of the recent incidents in texas and the 19 children that we all lost the two staff members that we all lost i was listening to him in his report on the lego and we constantly repeat the same when your kid was playing in the street they were playing the neighborhood street that worked up the his parents worked up the road you know uh if you you needed to help you just uh ask anybody and it struck true that it doesn't matter if it's brielle or texas we live a very similar life it seems that we're taking that for granted sometimes but just 20 seconds 21 seconds of silence so thank you again the uh meeting it was attended by myself uh miss jones dr giambrozio miss wreath the uh administrators who attended for miss carlson mr savior and his love and part for the course we spoke of a number of topics surrounding curriculum uh please be reminded that my report is a submarine that is not all encompassing it's almost impossible to accomplish those meetings let alone the work that is put in by the administration and staff behind them we spoke of end-of-year activities in the eighth grade graduation the administration provided us the calendar of those end of year activities which i've attached to the board and that's including but not limited to student trips concerts challenge day graduation preparations and the eighth grade boat trip most of these will be held outside under attack or as like the boat trip uh challenge today will be held indoors and the 10 8th grade students currently out in the flow and sicknesses were desperately hoping that many mandated mass did not come back into play for brielle the calendar is not fully complete and additional items may be added brielle elementary school along with other school districts is currently suffering from the lack of school bus drivers which impacts things like flash trucks and sports drivers are now commonly paid upwards of 29 to 35 an hour a high rate which also impacts current covenants unfortunately this year the faculty of our student basketball being sponsored by the booster club was cancelled due to several factors including a dwindling number of faculty members that who are able to participate we've been approached police chief olson who declined to kill him again since it was a risk without an alternative we are hopeful that it will happen for next year's twice as well the cinderella hall historically a huge event for brielle could not be accommodated by our normal local event holders based on sheer size and being in competition with other such things as weddings and public events the pto has spent quite some time looking for a forum and trying to make it happen but was unfortunately not successful it was not a lack of effort by the organization of the pto rx leadership we also spoke of policy 24-22 health and physical education where some state politicians requested that applause be placed on the policy in monmouth county by the state department of education however the standards are not being placed on calls nor are they like most policies from the doa teaching of the standards is less left up to the individual districts brielle has made available many workshops for those faculty approximately three faculty members total with one the k through three alone who will be teaching the curriculum the administration is working closely with the faculty to be ready for september parents with strong objections can still opt out of the instructions they being too sensitive for their children as standard operating procedure letters will be sent out to parents and caregivers informing them of the lessons allowing for any questions and providing for an opportunity to exercise parental options misinformation surrounding the policy still is the driving factor of superintendent frustration in monmouth county we real elementary and acknowledge that building communication with our school community is the key to proper teaching of the required curriculum this underscores the situation for our faculty and administrating the administration noting that their comfort level has been tested by misinformation like other state policies the monmouth county superintendents regularly request state guidance because of this there are up to a dozen different workshops and trainings for the faculty focusing on the standards where misinformation is the strongest rail does not have strong concerns with the standards and our curriculum administrator muslim has suggested the idea of a parent night to review the primary standards for some time during the next school year this will allow parents to review the policy and make their own decisions brielle has been working on this a lot this year and feels we are ahead of other districts with knowing what will work and what will not work for us as a school community we're not simply rubber stamping the curriculum and remain true to the values of the braille community likewise parent and caregiver trust is a huge factor in the successful information implementation of this or any other curriculum adopted by korea we spoke of special education and particularly the brielle special parent advisory group this group helps to ensure special education representation for parents and students a presentation for speech was held on the 24th at 6 30 which i attended and other presentations are planned for the fall with 68 pending even as possible they may be general presentations in nature with specific questions being addressed separately or directly with parents reality is on track with reports for the next school year all of them being deceived at the same time instead of possibly addressing the new students they run the course well with ieps a key parental concern with the level of communication back to parents on how their children are progressing or not progressing with their individual iep instructions acknowledging the importance of the group and its collaboration with the administration is critical it is also important for us to step back and take in what has been accomplished over the past several months a year the entire intervention team is currently working on streamlined documents and processes for back to school which includes the how and when communication to parents and caregivers we spoke of the pleaser academy and summer programs where letters were recently sent out to parents inviting them to have their children participate in the academy there are currently three tiers with 62 letters sent out from payday we're hoping that we do not have a repeat of last year where participation was sparse and where best case parents opted for at home tutors we're currently waiting on friendly responses from tier 1 and have faculty ready laser academy is based primarily on the recommendation by faculty who are aware of which child needs focus this includes identifying a single issue child as opposed to a child who may have multiple issues laser academy will teach towards a child's individual needs with a child stay bearing based on responses tailored programs we also stuck to our mandate of discussing diversity equity and inclusion at each meeting and miss love continued has continued to work hard during the school year addressing mandates starting this test october and monterey monitoring them to ensure state mandates are part of lesson plans yeah this curriculum shows based on grade where we are strong or where we may be evaluating something like social studies for instance will show that between current mandates including such things as biased teaching all through inclusion instruction and genocidal history this love is utilizing a curriculum checklist as a guide keeping our faculty focused on all parts of their lesson plans regarding the eei needs not just within the text but in areas reviewing history from a critical thinking position by students can be happy further planned professional development for staff will help them to view ddi through varied technical lenses any k through eight summer writing curriculum will take into consideration mandates highlighting programs to use the same checklist for evaluating for the infusion of dpi mrs jones asks about the incorporation of disabled persons and the inclusion of them as a court as part of a larger list of different groups into the curriculum and this love affirmed their inclusion it's also part of future p-day and will be part of lesson plans and that faculty is excited for the guidance doctor dean frazier asked that an overview of the status for the gifted program people are focused for the next or forward meetings mrs love said that she would be reaching out to parents and caregivers with children who maybe may have missed the program providing additional opportunity to qualify and live and know know that we would be keeping children indefinitely in the program on case-by-case faces mrs carlson spoke to future board meetings and the invitation extended to our new jersey school board association representative to come out to review school board member roles in goal setting noting it will be a great team building exercise this is joan jones also acknowledged autism awareness month was in april he was happy to see it on the school digital board along with the children walking to school she asked that a planned event for the 2023 school year be considered for next year's awareness month there were no additional comments or items by the administration for the board members for stopping and just taking a moment to acknowledge all of those children and the young families and the teachers that were lost in it texas such a tragedy um thank you for that uh does anyone have any questions or comments uh art it's fun to say that the news was super heroic and i really really appreciate all the detail there and then i did have two comments um just one on the fact about two four two two um the line and says that des does not have any strong concerns or objections as i pointed out in november i still do have concerns and objections to the curriculum and the guides that's being provided um to this i do trust and and i really appreciate the transparency here which is a key part of your message in terms of what's being done i love the idea of having a uh a night for parents to understand what the curriculum changes are and what we've done on our website to have those the curriculum be transparent i do think it's not so much about deeming that the topic is too sensitive for the children but maybe that's not appropriate or that parents believe that it's their responsibility and their right to be able to have those conversations with their children rather than school um so i did wanted to point that out and the second piece that i wanted to bring out was under uh 242 as well that the the regulation the policy and the regulation and this this may just be i might be moving too far into this but both the policy and regulation and the law call out diversity and inclusion and i want to say fully that i support what's being discussed here specifically the critical thinking uh viewing the historical events that we're putting on all of this but i have to think that the legislature intentionally left equity out of the legislation and the policies that are better in place and it may just be an oversight i know that dei is a common term uh in terms of a study area but two four two two does specifically say diversity and conclusion it does not include difficulty so i just would like to hear from this love uh mr jargon's love on on that topic impossible we know that i think that a huge issue in the country i was amazed that the uh the soccer team were able to finally pull off what they were able to pull off with the support that they had um so yeah without a doubt that they included you said yeah either the policy or regulation or the code i try any other questions or comments thank you um so we'll move on to human resources john committee met actually two weeks with ago administration as a result of that there's two items on tonight's agenda d5 and d6 that were discussed at that meeting as a result of the meeting there was no committee report because uh mr allison updated the board a few days after in an email as to some static genius that was the result of our committee unfortunately abbreviated notes are are included today did you receive them before the meeting i apologize for the like submission we had a change we changed the time around on this um so that we did meet on on monday at 4pm and uh met for an hour uh virtual league i was uh jones are mrs jones our president um as long as myself and mr becker and dr davrozio mrs carlson and squiggly joined from the administration there was a lot to cover uh because we had nine policy and regulations that applied to this school from alert two to seven and five uh from two two one which were previously not adopted because we had to prioritize some of the covalent policies in 221 um so we're including those those additional ones here tonight um we also did briefly discuss the continued need for a policy document management system and i have made a recommendation i don't know if you have a chance to review it we'll talk briefly about that but i did want to cover the policies and some of the most precedent action items um so a lot of the changes uh apply to uh harassment intimidation voting most notably that we are now required to report this the administrator is required to report manually to the board the number of possible hib incidents that were decided not to be or adjudicated not to be hit and we are updating that policy to have that occur in our july board meeting so basically when an incident is reported administrator has some discretion to determine whether or not it falls in our hiv this new requirement is that we would get a tally of all the incidences that were reported and where that discretion was was given to determine that it was not an hiv there were more requirements in terms of hivs in terms of making sure that we have the ability for parents to complete an online numbered form and then we have that information on our website we currently have two places on our website where we discuss this topic or at least two we have an anti-bullying section and we also have our student code conduct handbook so we'll be updating that uh information there although we are following up with sherry adams to understand our uh uh what that means in terms of online numbered form because it wasn't exactly clear we also have to update the website to identify mr sabia as the school climate state coordinator and then there's another uh a very important timely topic with this atrocity in texas uh fresh in our minds um in terms of our evacuation plans and our security drills uh the first being that uh while these are critically important uh events for our students that some districts have taken some of the drills too far to the point where they can be considered traumatic going into some of the details but there are some restrictions in terms of what can be done during those drills and to assure that they are age appropriate there also is a very important update to the use of our schools for groups and events that are not sponsored by the school so for instance our sports teams would not apply to this because those will be led by faculty or staff who are familiar with our evacuation security drills but we have other folks using our school um recreation department mom with basketball et cetera and we basically need to the community decided that we need to provide a packet of an explanation of what our procedures are for anybody who is a supervisor or supervising that type of activity in the school and there was a question that came up during the committee about what about the substitutes and our standing procedure is that the faculty is responsible to provide that type of security drill information in their lesson plans but i think this is a good opportunity for us to make sure that this is a very comprehensive packet for anybody that's going to be an adult in school whether they're a substitute a lunch aide or somebody coming in here for a wreck basketball game as a coach to understand what happens and what our security policies are and what our evacuation and lockdown policies are okay um so those are the major the major action items here um medalli i don't know if you have anything that i'll note to note from your uh highlighting the um we had we had several ones that um like you said because we had to prioritize these were left over from the previous year and so we thought we needed to update them so we have and the report went out for everyone to read and if there are any questions please contact me or sean if you have any questions but uh there are updates with um administrative employment contracts um cooperative purchasing some of the changes and updates on are revised to include a language change there was the 7440 uh school district security sean talked about that property inventory and um and the use of school facilities and that again has to do like sean just explained um making sure that anyone who uses our facility is is trained and knows about our procedures our safety procedures and i think it's a good idea to prepare a package if you would be able to um select who would be in charge of doing that but i think it's a good idea um teachers always put that that's part of their lesson plan package um but i think that especially in light of what just happened and unfortunately it continues to happen in our schools to have a set packet for anyone who enters the building this way our substitute teachers are aware um and then people who use our facilities there are groups that are not part of our school that use our facilities and and the way the policy reads is that whoever the supervisor is they're responsible for getting the packet and then training their um their people their group system we really ran out of time for the meeting but i did provide this series asked for a kind of like a side by side where prices what are the pros and cons of different platforms um and i just want to point out that since 2020 strauss sma has provided nearly 100 policy and regulation changes so there's a lot of volume of changes that are occurring and some of them remind you that some of them are you know the code wants to be abolished or new et cetera and we really still need to have these under control because as i look to see we have this in place in the in place i don't have a reference for this for any of our policies so the two big main options that we've looked at just to recap strauss estimate and paid to provide us with those policy updates and who's written our policy guides to date as a service they have a software platform that is lacking some features uh in terms of being able to do versioning and paper trail school boards offers a board docs they've negotiated a great with us with a platform called board docs and uh i looked at the prices of both and the cost of converting our policies to school boards in fact the school board doesn't really provide us with enough updates um you know for 100 changes that that strauss gave us school boards had about 35 in the same time um and i don't know if that's a that's a qualitative analysis but it is quantitative one and i don't see the updates frequently coming from school boards we do get them free as part of our dues to school boards but i did a cost comparison what i would recommend is that the state of strauss s a continue to use their policy numbering system and their policy updates i think they're very thorough um but we would use the school boards platform or docs platform and it's a total annual difference of about seven hundred dollars to do it that way not including our school board uh dues which we pay for other reasons beyond just possible updates so anybody has any questions on that i'm happy to discuss it um but that would be my recommendations and then on the software discussion front uh mrs jones also brought up that you've had experience with a platform called hipster which allows us to manage these hiv concerns with strong documentation which is also part of those working policy changes and we have not had a chance to investigate that but i will look into that as a as an option for us as an additional software platform to manage our agendas did you share that with all the board members today and this is linked on the new business policy document that was a really good thank you for putting that together um it was really easy to see both um to be able to compare both companies um so if if you haven't had a chance to look at that um take a look at that and then um you know we could just discuss it further and make a decision on that but thank you for doing that doing that research on both of those companies does anyone have any questions thank you again sean and uh community relations um mrs mcdonough isn't here well esther mcdevitt is not cheating and she asks that i give uh or attend the brielle parent advisory group meeting just the other night which sponsored a presentation by our spl teachers or speech and language teachers phyllis and mandy both with an impressive punitive years of experience not only in classrooms but gabrielle itself they give a very comprehensive presentation on a uh hearing and speech uh it was attended fairly okay by the public or to parents there other than the real group leaders and myself it was impressive they're very impressive people they they know their stuff and you walked away very confident knowing that they had a high level and a big concern as well professionalism and experience there were many ideas floated around some of which i spoke to in my report but i'm excited to move forward with the committee with the takeaways that if we can address the challenges of communication as well as parental participation we would be making some good any questions so we're going to move on to action items [Music] you know out that um you know another day where you know you turn on the news and there's a school shooting it's just you know my recollection i was a school a middle school principal one column line happened and um many years later i got to go to a round table with superintendents and i met the superintendent i met the principal at conway high school and he shared his story and it's a very these stories don't end well for the people that live and the children that experience shooting in their schooling and then in 2012 when sandy hook happened i think that shook us to the core and we did a lot of things here because of it and it was two years later that i got to go uh with 300 superintendents and i met the superintendent from sandy hook and i got to hear her story and um and there's many others and now they're talking about children in texas and it's just terrible that these other conversations were happening i had several teachers some reported to come this morning and some came to me saying that they didn't sleep last night and uh it's just you know as a teacher to just think that that could happen in elementary school and you know what what children are exposed to or what parents are exposed to and um my contact with chief olsen said yeah i'm gonna have my police officers at your site parents you know did wave to us and say thank you for being here but it's just hard to believe that this is just another story i have nathan gregor say to me today how can an 18 year old buy the soft weapon but they can't purchase cigarettes around them and i couldn't answer the question that's what they is you're 18 you can't buy cigarette dreams you can't play out but you're 18 and you combine the software i just said these are some questions that we have to deal with we are very busy in the next month of school this friday um our eighth graders are having their career day is back uh june 4th north south is back and then everything in between we have government elections going on next week our eighth graders are going to gettysburg for an overnight trip uh special person's day is happening great it's k1 2 and 3.

i imagine many of you had feelings of nervousness and excitement you are being presented with a new challenge in a new environment with new people class of 2022 not only did you survive high school you embraced and conquered those challenges abraham lincoln said the best way to predict your future is to create it class of 2022 i challenge all of you to create a future of greatness over the last four years you have shown bravery resiliency and success you experience success in the classroom during competition and on stage your final high school achievement is impressive as a class you have earned over 8 million dollars in scholarships and grants [Applause] graduates your accomplishments will leave a lasting legacy at moon valley high school i wish you continued success as you strive to reach your personal and professional goals always work hard be kind and take care of one another on behalf of the faculty staff and administration at moon valley high school we wish you continued success congratulations class of 2022 [Applause] we now will get to listen to a piece from our talented moon valley symphony orchestra [Music] so [Music] um [Music] member reichs could you please join me at the podium it is my pleasure as principal of moon valley high school to certify that these students have met the requirements for graduation as set forth by the state of arizona and the glendale union high school district accordingly i present this class to ms pam reich's governing board member of the glendale union high school district miss rice i respectfully request that you accept these graduates and that you and mr bowler confer diplomas upon them as a member of the governing board of the glendale union high school district and by the authority vested in me by the constitution and laws of the state of arizona i accept and confirm that the moon valley high school class of 2022 has met the requirements for graduation ms salyer please present the graduates to receive their diplomas [Applause] in order for the ceremony to belong to each graduate it must belong to them all therefore our senior class and faculty request that all guests guests act with courtesy avoiding excessive cheering when names are called so that each graduate's name may be heard clearly by everyone will the first row of the class of 2022 prepare to come forward [Applause] aidan harrison denisia lovato [Applause] marisol cemental [Applause] micah calvin dean southwick [Applause] sarah zavala bridget romari siobhani herrera isaac prentice jennifer haney joseph gutierrez villa andrea [Applause] rodriguez amy gutierrez alejo [Applause] delaney thompson stephen beatty haley war olivia monroe amy stevens matthew renninger jocelyn reagan gutierrez aaliyah hennerberg sarah rafat kylie farmer cedra shaheen brian arreola olivia bailey lacy jones shams alhamandani robert banks arrest brandon kitchen chanel montejas alyssa quintero lane reichard [Applause] fiona galen rasco tawny gomez [Applause] albert placencio taylynn booker xavier amada nick kreiner victor garcia kyra pruitt bliss joy [Applause] jacqueline freeman [Applause] khadija abdi [Applause] alexis carrasco [Applause] vicky pham tatiana saleh [Music] jaden abby adrian deleon [Applause] warren schumann jose hernandez grace morgan [Music] [Applause] tunde akinosho michaela luker [Applause] jalen lacy nathalia islava hannah darnell carly hare [Applause] aylin lada rivera scott campbell [Applause] lizzie chavez see us morgan pierce noemi camacho beltran matthew cruzak [Applause] sierra castillo marissa delgado ruiz patrick castro evelyn sarrakanja martin estrada garrett maurice [Applause] carlos castillo crystal soto olivas eddie ceballos john walker pablo avitia renteria ismail perez casey gatewood [Applause] bernie sarat shanandra litsui [Music] naeli ochoa adelia carroll tiana wilson zoe daisy roxanna palma san vicente julieta gomez kevin perez aaliyah hersey [Applause] dominic nunes michaela [Applause] earls dylan wilster nova nova alexandria relis victoria davenport cesar jimenez easton bowers abigail osorio robles jordan lemons alessandra palomares roman vodka grace ramirez ochoa cody brandt gabba mabiere [Applause] elizabeth grace guerrero ulysses rivera corona [Applause] jabari jones angel miranda ortega aaron lopez luis valenzuela matthew camacho deshay moore [Applause] brianna campbell ezekiel muniz kendrick fischer adrian satterwhite angel johnson nevaeh lopez tyler bort plasik amber meeks cody juarez lopez lana charmouk [Applause] alexis johnson ruben vivalva delgado [Applause] isabella gonzalez riva sliwa aaliyah kinney cordell outrage victoria celso gonzalez stephanie olson rosalie yellow latavia mendoza zoe cedillo [Applause] jada neely alexis carroll antonio roybal michael robert bailey the third my taurus michael learned kyrie henrich clara rios jaden domingo ashton wright jeremy dreer lauren pittman [Applause] evans chloe slider alec jock jose orianna raul burgos abner ramirez [Music] sebastian bueno brian torres gonzalez jose angel coral enriquez tristan valdepena [Applause] ricardo garcia contreras [Applause] nicholas nikula yahir espinosa christine simon kevin blanco alexander ryder michelle piedra cusick losandro nieblas sofia franco emily cerna thomas harris [Applause] isabella marie sanchez hung huang arendando [Applause] toliver gabriel glidewell samantha perez jordan burries serena sealy james huey arturo vicente rivas willard bort [Applause] emeline marsacci [Music] kai lewis heidi sharp a rope qual john zeista amari angel blue eyes [Applause] gregory lynn aurelies flores hagan sears carla alvarez vasquez sebastian regino [Applause] jasmine delgado joseph taylor seth baldock caden ramage pierce atwell ethan tan brianna lopez [Applause] dean weldy tobias diaz alondra rodriguez ventura maximilian beltran kimberly palacios joseph rafael gutierrez eber rowland leah anderson dania pacheco jaden beverly jamina sanchez saira camacho pamela mcbride tatiana gomez mario reyes carson estelle jacob thomas alexis carrasco calderon shania sanchez ahmed al-jabiri kendra lopez ojeda jayden flores [Applause] paley wiese josiah flores carlos pina charles danes yusef sala mario cervantes ava schultz xavier fernandez [Applause] emma schultz aguirre julian ramirez charles akers sean robles jacob johnson montgomery roy [Applause] armando ramirez carame sandoval nicole soto [Applause] angelica munoz [Applause] yesenia ornelias [Applause] jessica lopez martinez ava retana estrada [Applause] oh [Applause] good evening faculty family friends and of course the class of 2022.

um we saw like i said an increase in the london planes in our oaks red specifically we saw a good increase in that um so these were our top ten four oaks or excuse me four maples make up that large percentage of maple in our in our urban forest so we continue to um very limitedly plant maple um and then the ones that we do are um really by resident a strong resident request yes question i'm your muted yeah tiffany it's steve um first of all i'm surprised that there are so many elms in the list here because of dutch elm disease which species of elms are you planting um we have uh princeton and we have um i'm drawing a blank but we would do the the dutch home resistant varieties um is what we're planting and are those native trees or yeah of yeah they're of they're a mix and i don't know exactly what they're mix of but yeah they're they're a variety of native but they're they're a variety of american and they're spliced with something else i can't remember what but they are resistant to dutch elm disease thank you great and um i had one other comment i think but um my understanding is that the state or the state uh classifies norway maple as the moon invasive yes invasive continuing to plant norways or really no no we don't plant any they're on our list that people can't plant them you can't plant cultivars like and stuff no okay great thank you and then we're looking at the overall condition of our urban forest we want to see the overall condition increase and we did see that um trees are slow growing so we wouldn't expect to see like a huge ginormous jump in the overall condition um but we did see an increase and we're very happy about that and then the overall tree condition of our population is fair and i just wanted to put out there the the definition so when that we sent out the arborists from davie resource group to go out and do our inventory fair condition class means it has minor structural problems or mechanical damage so there's some storm damage in the tree or significant damage from non-fatal disfiguring diseases so think of tar spot on maple where it's not exactly great to look at or um the nipple gall on hackberry again it's not great to look at but it doesn't hinder the tree and what it needs to do really um minor crown imbalances or thin ground um maybe some a little bit of stunted growth compared to some trees nearby or trees that have been topped so think of some of the trees that have potentially had some pruning done to them that are somewhat close to utility lines but they show reasonable vitality and no obvious science decay yes could you just explain the numeric score where the trees for the two yep so they took the whole condition class and date this is a um in part of the report that davey sent and they're updating that and i plan on forwarding it to you guys as well as um elizabeth dean fund committee and the natural features committee um once they get it to me they're updating it uh but that's from the summer report from the 2020 inventory what they did is they took all of the average score from the first inventory so the tree health score and then they they took the average score of the 2020 inventory and just divided it by the number of trees and then this is what you've got so the average score the mean has gone up i'm not a i'm not a statistician i'm sorry if i'm not explaining that well no that's okay but but it's just across all species for one thing right it's across all species all size classes everything okay and so the condition um for each tree each tree has its own numeric score based on the definition of the condition good fair poor yes yes okay thank you yes so anyway fair condition is trees that are doing average they're doing all right they're holding their own they're not in poor condition um so uh most urban forests most trees are in fair condition so ann arbor's is not unique that the majority of the trees are in fair condition the majority of the trees in grand rapids and lansing in all the other cities average condition the one that has the most trees in it is always always fair condition a lot it's really hard to find an excellent excellent condition tree out there so take a look at excuse me the breakdown of the trees again i showed this earlier but um 52 percent of our trees are in that fair condition meaning minor structural defects um decent canopy 31 are in the good condition uh and then we had uh trees in very good um and then the we had nine percent in poor one percent in both critical and dead uh so uh we had about 85 86 of our trees um in fair condition or above which is good um the priority this just breaks down um what we are maintenance categories every tree that is in our inventory is assigned a maintenance category um the majority of them are in large tree routine pruning which makes sense um we're working our way through our routine pruning cycle and then the next thing would be the training prune which again makes sense because we plant a thousand trees a year all of those trees you know get put in as a will need routine pruning and we don't do that for the first three to four years of its life unless there's obvious crossing branches we do take care of those right away go ahead oh yeah tiffany it's steve again um so i noticed that under your column part trees it's the mode areas so does this mean that the the area around the tree completely around the tree is mode or and what about the uh trees that are not in the mode areas how are those how do those enter in here they don't um the the trees that are large and kind of sit forward a little bit and have some lying around part of it they're probably they're included in the inventory but any of the trees in the native natural areas we couldn't inventory those um they're just part of our natural area they aren't included in this okay you um do you um uh do you have an estimate of the total tree canopy area in the city or the zero is your office to do that or not yet no um i have uh sat with the natural features committee and chris graham can and rita probably speak to this more than me but we did have the c students that are pulling that uh data together on doing the updating our natural features layer to include turf grass and native forest fragment canopy cover and stuff like that right and you went when do you expect to have that publicly available than information rita or chris do you know has rit folks gotten that data yet there's supposed to be a data transfer happening between u of m and us and i don't know that that's taking place i don't know it's taking place either but it's imminent it will take some time for them to incorporate it we're hoping they incorporate it not only in your databases but into the natural features layers on the website okay all right thanks thanks tiffany oh one more thing sorry um there was a question uh that was sent to me about a breakdown of contracted versus versus in-house work so i thought i'd give you a little snapshot into our urban forestry program here so on staff we have excuse me 10 sometimes 11 folks there's myself one urban forestry specialist we sometimes have one intern working under myself on projects and then we have eight full-time employees and one supervisor and they're the ones that handle all of the in-house maintenance the actual physical maintenance of the trees in our urban forest including myself and the full-time staff we have six isa certified arborists uh two track so tree risk assessment qualified arborists and one oakwell qualified arborist we handle and house all of the reactive pruning storm damage the president calls in and says something broke off in the crown there's a hanger that kind of stuff we handle all of that we handle all the removals and we do all of the stump grinding on a limited basis there's some tree planting that takes place in house and any cabling bracing we don't do a lot of it but what we do have done we do it ourselves contracted forestry i manage all of those excuse me in-house all of those contracts for the contracted work that we have done that includes our routine pruning cycle that contractor is um davie tree care company by david tree experts we also have our annual tree planting that's right now by margolis and then any tree fertilization we don't do a lot of that either we uh reserve that for a very large what might consider heritage trees um we do contract that out and that generally goes to guardian tree experts they're local here to ann arbor sorry i tried to mute i couldn't find my new button so how do we use this information we prioritize removals prioritize pruning selection of planting sites and then diversification of tree species we take a look at what we have too much of and try not to plant it we take a look at what we don't have enough of and try to plant it um and then when we get into an um a community a neighborhood we look at what's growing nearby and try to diversify yes uh kathy griswold um i'm wondering if there are branches that are covering a stop sign or blocking visibility is that something that your staff uh monitors when they're out doing pruning or is that something that needs to be reported through say a to fix it or how would we report that condition yeah if you find something it's best to report it um you know we we have two crews so we have say we have eight people you know nine with our maintenance supervisor maintenance sufficer is not out generally doing that work he's going and responding to service requests if you see something please um submit a ticket because there's no guarantee that we'll drive past where an issue is so we also rely on folks either physically calling in or submitting that ticket oh okay when you say a ticket is that through eight you fix it yeah oh okay great thank you very much and is there any other staff within the city that monitors for say trees that are blocking signage i'm sure i get calls from our traffic engineer folks our traffic engineering team yeah they reach out each year and say oh you know tiffany this tree is starting to encroach on this intersection at this stoplight could we get it added to the list here to be taken care of oh okay great so growing the urban forest by the numbers um i took a look at this year's tree plantings and um every year um the program that i manage the the annual street tree planting we target hitting 50 we normally hit 60 or more however lately we've been finding a problematic to find native trees this spring we hit 48.2 percent native this is um basically coming down to what our our nurseries are able to find the supply and we've i've talked to ann arbor or not hannah um novi grand rapids and lansing and they're all facing the same things um they're having trouble finding certain certain species so um we've been working with um missy's team um to talk about potentially trying to start up a nursery here that the city would own and that we could control what we put in the ground and we're in the very early stages of that but um we do try to target that our resident street tree planting program is 100 native that's bare root trees um that that residents can sign up to plant in front of their home they do the planting themselves we assist elizabeth dean fund um this year was 71 percent native and the 10 000 trees initiative i reached out to sean um who manages that program and they're at 73 native so far other questions i see hands up um you're you're muted yeah um it's steve brown again um there's there's a public perception that comes up periodically that um a lot of the newer trees that are planted you know in the uh adjacent to the streets um died within the first year so i was wondering if you might how you monitor um you know survival uh one year out five years out things like that and what you uh and how residents can minimize uh you know the loss of the recently planted trees yeah so the first year a tree is under um warranty so that first year if the tree dies the contractor has to come out and replace it so after that at that point we have a hundred percent like 100 of the trees are alive because they've come and replaced any that have died um i checked two years ago and uh we had ninety two percent of them were alive i think eight percent of the trees had died in the course of that first year so eight percent of them were replaced after that we honestly haven't been able to track we haven't been able to keep up because we plant so many each year um forestry staff used to be a lot more and you know when all the budget cuts came back in the day you know the levels were never restored and that is not unique to forestry you know the the city staff level is not where it traditionally was and so we haven't been able to to adequately get back out there and care for those trees and that is further in the presentation too about some of the challenges that we're facing and what we are trying to do to try to combat some of that yes thanks tiffany for this presentation um i'm wondering if there could i think that um you know when something is planted in front of my house in the right-of-way i tend to think of it oh that's the city's responsibility but i'm wondering if there's a way um to kind of invite the homeowner to share in some of the care by just saying like a little a little door handle thing that goes over say you have a new street tree that like you're not obligated to but would you consider watering it if it you know something just to kind of like invite people that they're not responsible for it necessarily but just to kind of let them know hey we could use some help here that maybe there's a way that we could reduce those numbers of survivability of of them dying off um if there could just be something simple not again not like getting everybody's email and training and all that kind of business but just something that's like a simple standard thing that you kind of leave off just to let people know that you are short staffed and that it's something that would be great if people could step in and support things yeah right now we um we have a door hanger um i'm thinking of turning it into a mailer this year that just says you know hey there's a new street tree here this is how much water supplemental watering if it gets real hot and dry you know we do have that right now and we and you can tell i mean the trees that survive they're the ones that are adjacent to somebody who's watering it um and so we're looking at ways to um engage with residents we've talked about you know putting out weekly or bi-weekly facebook bumps hey you got a new tree planted next to your house this recently you know if you could go out and give it a drink of water that'd be great you know things like that like but yeah any ideas on it on the engagement and um getting residents more involved that would be great because right now you know if we plant a thousand feet a year in the contractor waters the first thousand that first year that's 2000 trees that need to be watered for two additional years you know it's there's we don't have the capacity to go out and water that and do that and um so yeah okay just for questions and kathy i just want to reinforce what shannon said and i i think this is an important discussion because while the trees are replaced if they die within a year uh this is going to sound crazy but people become emotionally attached to their trees and when they die they're they're upset about it and so the public perception is that many more than eight percent of the trees die so i don't know what you can do about that tiffany but it's just and you probably experienced it already yeah we get folks reaching out and i encourage them to reach out to me and um usually the ones that reach out are the ones you know that that they're like yeah i'll water this time you know i water i didn't realize you know and and then they and they do um but yeah i'm always open to suggestion on on ideas um and that's it's one of the topics up for discussion with our steering committee and um our public engagement all it's one of the questions we're asking folks you know like what are some ideas on this because we're hoping to get some um goals and recommendations that come out of this plan to implement um moving forward oh okay great thanks yeah another question i see a number of hands uh it's chris graham tiffany i'll speak i you'll probably already have noticed in the proposed changes to chapter 40 we added language that is extremely explicit that residents the adjacent property owner is responsible for care of the street lawn and what happens there i hate to use the word street lawn they're responsible for the care of what happens on the planted part of the right-of-way it's not just snow it's watering trees it's collecting leaves it's keeping the gutters clean it's keeping the sidewalks clean it's not putting stuff in the street when you mow the lawn or blow the leaves [Music] it's my guess and the reason that we put that language in there is that the great majority people have no idea they're responsible for what happens on what they consider to be public property and so i think a serious education program may be associated with communicating a new version of chapter 40 will help a lot um case in point neighbor across the street um all of a sudden a tree appeared in her front yard and she wrote me an email and said what's this tree and uh i said well i i'm well aware of the city is planting trees in every available space and you got one and it's on the right way and and it's hoped that you'll take care of it and like it well she said uh it's a surprise to me and so is where the right-of-way is a surprise to her it's on my street anyway we don't have sidewalks and sidewalk buffer strips most places do so it's a little less clear but certainly where there are sidewalk buffer strips and sidewalks trees on the sidewalk buffer strip are considered public property they're taken care of by the city it's their problem not mine and i think that's the majority opinion in the city thank you i show one hand up i can't see faces it just tells me one person has a hand up that's me um yeah thanks um i just wondered if you could give an explanation for the of native species for the bare root tree planting oh it's because it's very limited we only get about one to seven participants of this program and so we only order a very small amount of bare root trees um and so i get two small varieties two medium varieties and two large canopy varieties so that no matter who signs up i'll have a couple of trees for them to select from and so i select trees because i only order uh six species i just order um native so no matter what they choose they're getting native it's a small program but the the residents i think i've had one person this would be her this fall will be her third time participating so it's popular amongst a very small niche okay so we talked about some of these already um but some of the challenges of our run floors today um one that i think is just going to carry through indefinitely is the difficult growing conditions the urban environment is very hard for to grow a tree um limited growing space above and below multiple times a year i'm writing appraisal assessments on our trees for insurance because they've been hit by cars things like that species scarcity a lot of municipalities like i said are having trouble finding certain species um conifers hickories especially can't find hickory to save my life so um and then climate change uh we're changing conditions we're having to look at species migration what maybe we should look for um plant moving forward to adapt how we foresee our conditions changing development's a huge one removal of our urban free canopy it's a challenge to make that up in our public space when you have vast swaths of trees come down on the private side during development um it's i think it's unrealistic to expect we're gonna be able to make that canopy up in the public space um the right always we only have so many of those parks parks are great spots for planting trees but we have to remember that they're multi-use meaning there are some areas you don't want trees um just for recreation purposes so it's not like you can see this big open area in a park and think okay we'll just go plant and forest that um that might not be the traditional use of that park so and then invasive species um really it's the we we always we're trying to watch to see what's coming um myself and some of the other isa certified arborists were in webinars every month um on asian longhorn beetles spotted lanternfly like all these things that we see has potential to get here we're really watching spotter lanternfly right now it was recently seen in ohio that's not good i mean they border us we anticipate that it could come it's going to affect a number of our hardwood species if it does get here so we're constantly on the lookout our staff are in our trees all the time um daily every day they're up in our trees and they're driving around and they know excuse me what to look for if they see something out of the ordinary they know to report it to their supervisor who then can report it to me we no longer offer protections on um invasive species so when someone wants to remove a calorie pair we are not charging the canopy loss feed if they want to remove that pair while we don't have the budget to go out and remove all of the invasives we don't want to put any kind of barrier to residents removing invasives um so we're we're cognizant of that um we're very careful in the non-native trees that we do plant that they have a strong um history so that we don't uh plant and have another calorie pair um that's always the concern when planting non-native plants is that you know back in the day they didn't know that that was invasive and it was a tree that did well it was a tree you know that that flowered it was popular and now we're having um like pear deserts up along our interstates you know in the spring you can see them they're flowers they're just growing in everywhere so that's that's a real concern and we do watch for that and then obviously insufficient or insufficient resources for proper post planting care as we discussed we're really challenged in providing that just the capacity we don't have the equipment to be able to do it the watering trucks necessary to be able to do it and then we also recognize that that could place a burden on the adjacent homeowner to tell them that well you're solely responsible so we're we're getting um we have an rfp out right now uh to hopefully try to get a watering contractor and we're trying to see if maybe that can't help um get these trees to help them get established in this tough environment and give them that critical care they need within that first few years i see there's a hand up again i've got two questions one um could you provide us the information that's on the door hanger that you use for the the things that would be so good to see um and the other one in terms of a challenge um i hate to bring this up but um when we have power outages and he comes back and um removes a lot of wood uh in living trees and i just wonder if there's a way that that has there been an assessment of the street trees following trimming following we haven't done any assessment of any trees following outages um quite frankly we're we get um dte sends us spreadsheets and they come to myself in our parks areas because you know they go power lines go through parks and natural areas so myself scott spooner and becky hand with a nap and they send us a list and other than the removals where i have authority to say yes or no on removals i there's nothing i can do um they're just they're gonna prune the trees so uh we haven't done any kind of study on whether those trees have since died um but they're certainly contributing you know to the fair and poor ratings of our urban forest for sure um i'm open to ideas i just wonder yeah this well i don't know about fixing it but just understanding it maybe there's an intern who could dovetail the the inventory with the spreadsheets to see how many you know and what species or whatever you know the age of the tree that kind of thing might be useful just for information and then figure out what to do it's a good idea another hand someone want to unmute yeah um two things one is i'm wondering if you're starting to see oak wilt in ann arbor or not i've seen it in some other places not that far from here and so i'm just wondering what you all are seeing we haven't seen any in ann arbor yet i haven't heard from the dnr that there's any here i do know that it is on our borders i know that it's close um any time the only calls i've gotten were from residents that were trees on private and i can't go look at trees in private so what i do is i give them kevin sayer's contact information and he reaches out um to them and i'm always i always make sure that they cc me on it and the dnr sends somebody out to take a look um but so far we haven't had a positive hit within the city but we do know it's coming and which is why um when i got on one of the first things i did was get one of our guys one of our isa certified arborists qualified through the state great um and so there he's responded to a couple of different um things but it hasn't been oakville okay that's i'm really glad that you all are on top of that because it's pretty devastating um the other thing is just an anecdotal thing i noticed which is um uh going down gettys i'm noticing a big area of tree lilac that seems to be just starting to go nuxoid in some of the forest the adjacent kind of hillside forest going down gettys where i probably saw i don't know 25 of them all blooming clearly naturalizing in the woods there so um i know that you all are so limited about what trees actually work under power lines and all those kinds of things but i just wanted to note that um that it may be one to watch in terms of it's starting to spread um on its own have you heard other than that have you heard anything about tree lilac because i haven't heard anything i haven't heard anything i just saw it i mean i'm happy to point out to you at another time where i saw it yeah please do if you might send me a google map and circle yep i'm happy to do that thanks it's down there dave shipman's house at the bottom of getty's near arlington yep and um in june i i guess maybe it's a little early but no yeah july is usually when i like late june early july it's usually when um calm evening or night the smell down through there is absolutely fabulous i hope you're not i hope you don't have tree lilac on your wacket list i it's a wonderful plant even though it's japanese not suitable for a street tree yep edie you have your hand up yeah thank you um uh two quick questions for you tiffany uh the first is since the city has you know such a kind of exemplary and um advanced urban forest program um i'm just wondering is do you collaborate or have you considered opportunities to potentially collaborate with other communities in the surrounding area to kind of you know share some of these best practices and and how it's been successful and just kind of you know build that resilience in surrounding communities yeah um i have an open email thread with the city of ann arbor uh there see a grand rapids um city of lansing city of novi and then um i think it was washed on summer they just got a new uh county forester and her name is summer roberts but anyway she's also included in on it and we're constantly what species are you planting what are you finding hard to find what are you trying um things like that uh i asked about um watering trees and ann arbor is not alone in this struggle and uh grand rapids lansing and novi all said no you're writing a contract for a watering contractor let us know how it goes send us the language we you know if it works for you we're going to try it because they're running into the exact same problem they're planting the trees but there isn't the infrastructure or resources in place to then maintain those trees for the three years watering that they really should get and so we really have an open collaborative process with other communities this is what we're doing what are you trying um and we do that i also go and speak at michigan state university's urban forestry class um to talk about urban forestry and urban forestry programs and what we're doing here in ann arbor i also this year did that for eastern michigan university um to talk about programs here in ann arbor and then we're working with urban ashes like i said um about a pilot program here in ann arbor for urban wood reuse and trying to build like a regional potential hub to pull wood from the waste stream and the cities of ann arbor um there are a few cities outside of michigan who heard about what's going on and have reached out to urban ashes and have gotten on a waitlist to potentially get a program mimic after what's going on in ann arbor that's awesome thank you i'm glad to hear all of that and then my second question is um does the city currently or intend to use the um american forest tree equities score in any of its prioritization and planning on street tree plantings you know kind of the neighborhood by neighborhoods or does that factor in to your decision making at all at this time with our huge street tree plantings um we go into huge areas and yeah we do take a look at where trees are needed we really are building that the program kind of program you're talking about with the elizabeth dean fund we have gone and um my intern is actually leading this charge jamie she has worked with osi so missy's team and it's been using um the true equity score and coming up with um planting packets so neighborhoods that um it's got the equity score and it's got like canopy scores it's got all these different things and really rising to the top the areas that truly um need the trees the most and then the dean fund is prioritizing those and they're going to go in and plant entire neighborhoods and we're actually going to run a pilot on that i think this fall is the is the plan so um it really is overhauling maybe not just a street but like a neighborhood that's fantastic thank you so much okay so i was asked about educational opportunities for residents as well as maintenance staff and contractors within our city that does work that comes near any of our trees each resident who receives the tree does get a door hanger and i'm looking to send that out as a mailer instead like an informational mailer rita i have a note i'm gonna get that sent off to if not galen and then he can share it with you all um to see what we give away but and then we also place trunk guards on each of our trees and we've gone back to our small trees and put trunk guards on for like the last eight or ten years worth of plantings um so we've gone in and we've done that and i have to say the elizabeth dean fund has funded a lot of that um a lot of the tree guards and it's been a lifesaver we're seeing a lot of reduction and mortality loss um to the string trimmers we're seeing a lot of that um and then our park staff um our parks maintenance staff when they're first hired on they're instructed to stay away from the trees um especially with the wheat trimmers and mowers anytime a park steward or someone sees that there's an issue and it gets brought to my attention it always gets brought to the park maintenance supervisor's attention and they re-educate their staff and make sure that they understand the importance and stay away from the city's trees give 365 um with some of their uh staff um we do tree id young tree training pruning and fourth forest health education as requested so when they get a bunch of new staff on sometimes they'll reach out and they'll ask us to provide just some basic training for some of their folks and then every year minus that big covid year there we do our citizen pruner training um citizen pruner is a volunteer program that works with resident volunteers uh who sign up to go through a training with myself and some of our forestry staff on pruning young trees we provide all the equipment all the training all the safety gear they they don't donate their time and they come and sign up for this program um we have training days and then we have work days and they come out and they hone the skills that they learned on pruning small trees and the city gets the benefit of one not only like interacting with our residents and giving them an idea of what we do but two um our trees our young trees are getting pruned and it's a great you know networking event um we've had people from the very beginning who've donated their time every year for the past 12 years so program is i'm hugely popular i get people on the waitlist you know that are that sign up every year i it's it's great and then our mowing maintenance contractors i talked to the public works supervisor um he said that there really hasn't been much of an issue but they do tell them to stay away from our trees but again since we put those trunk guards on our smaller trees we really haven't seen much of an issue we haven't had apparently reports of any issue within the last few years and none that have been brought to my attention yes it's your hand hi this is such a great presentation i really want to thank you for it um i have a constituent who is quite vigilant about the weed whacking issue and who has actually found or at least last season when it was green again so not yet this year i haven't heard from her but she has definitely seen damage in city parks from weed whackers so the way to do it is is how exactly does it get brought to your attention what's the most way for her to address that she can either submit a c like a c click fix thing right or you can pass for my contact info and what i would do is get a right to scott spooner um he's the maintenance supervisor um deputy manager under parks but you can always pass my info on if it's not something that i personally i i can't almost like contract out to parks i don't really have any i don't know authority maybe it's right word over part trees strictly street trees i go and assist parks as they need um so i would get that information to them so that they could address their maintenance crews and make sure that they are maintaining appropriate distances from the trees so is that better coming from you or is it something that it would be just as effective for her to go straight to scott spooner with she could do either okay go straight to scott if she wanted to to cut out like a middleman type thing but i also bug scott and sometimes you know his office is like right outside of mine and so i always say hey did you reach out to that person i forwarded on to you and so good no all right there's always that aspect scott's really good at getting back to people but i really appreciate that thank you yeah of course so if anyone does see anything concerns um i can't get out and look at all of our 50 some thousand trees you know almost 60 000 trees so if someone's seeing something absolutely get it to my attention and and i can get someone out to look at it and try to stop whatever's happening i'm going to try to fly through some of these um this is just comparing our what we've done in the last eight years since our last urban forest management plan i'm sorry i can't see your faces is there someone else with a hand up that had a question no i don't see one company yeah you can pretty much skip over i'm sorry i failed to lower my hand yeah pretty much skip ask over these things they're all they're in the public record and uh yeah they are it's just kind of what we've done in the last you know eight years i don't want to take up all your guys's time um so here's the second to last slide this is again the planning process we're here what do we want we're reaching out to people um i'm meeting with you all i've um we've had our steering committee meetings we have our focus group meetings we had our first community-wide engagement meeting um we're taking in information having folks look at our past objectives recommendations what's still a priority what's a new priority that's maybe bubbling up to the top um that kind of thing um and we'll work our way through we anticipate getting a final um like we'll get a draft here this fall and we'll send the draft out in bulk like to you guys to everybody to comment on we're gonna go and have public meetings and say this is what we heard this is what we've done did we get it right did we miss anything give folks a chance to respond back to the draft plan and then in about march of 2023 we should have a finalized plan to take to city council for adoption just a couple things first i wanted to um remind you all if you haven't um there was a survey sent out to your group um it was also sent to the natural features committee as a subcommittee of the environmental commission we wanted to hear their thoughts as well um that if you could just fill that out and give us your thoughts we would really appreciate it um i would also appreciate it if you had any additional comments that you couldn't put in that survey feel free to forward them on to me they're all being captured um for our consultants to make sure that that we're we're taking in all of the comments and really seeing what rises to the top and second i wanted to thank you for your time and interest in our urban forest and what we're doing with the urban forestry program and our urban forest management plan update so if there are any other questions i'd be happy to take them now and thank you so much i will stop sharing unless anyone needs my contact info still well thank you very much tiffany you know you've been a you've been a real soldier here talking to us today um i just had one comment but i don't expect an extended response to it that is that i don't you have a good web page the city's forced forced web webpage is pretty pretty complete but you don't say anything about invasive species so i think a lot of you know a lot of um there i i driving around town or riding around on my bike mostly i see a lot of properties um that have uh you know glossy buckthorn going right up to the sidewalk um things like that so i was wondering um where does the city um where does the city you know uh uh um you know express some concerns about this or this as a potential problem um which which website handles the invasive species information our natural area of preservation so nap they have entire sections on invasive species but what we could do is add a link on our page that would you know concerned about invasive species in the city and link right over to the nap pages about because i think they have like glossy buckthorn and some other things up there um they're really the ones that are handling the invasives right okay thank you that's a great suggestion um and sarah nedrich you have your hand up hi thanks tiffany uh that was an excellent presentation and i love like all the data you guys have collected recently um that was really a cool comparison um one thing i was wondering about um we've had a lot more big storms lately that are knocking down trees um in our neighborhood we had some uh that were in the roadway um and the response time was quite slow to come out and clean them up so i was wondering like how you're set up if you have enough resources to react to these big storm events where you have lots of downed trees all at one time or if your program needs more resources in that respect well if we get a big storm event like a really big one we have two crews so if there's a number of trees in the roadways and stuff there will be a delay we we have to prioritize so getting the big arteries open first roadway arteries um after that we we make sure side roads and roads that in this subdivision things like that get cleared then we go and do sidewalks when we need additional help that's when molly the director of public works that's when she steps in and she pulls people from parks and she pulls people from our other work areas uh i can't speak hugely to our staffing level need she would know that more than me um i can tell you we we don't get a ton of storms where we have multiple multiple trees down all over the place um luckily those aren't real frequent um but when they do um molly does have a plan in place you know where she starts pulling people that do have experience because not everyone we can't just grab anybody to go out there and do the work that these guys do we can't just hand a chainsaw to anybody um and expect they're going to be able to run this chipper and in all the specialized equipment but there there is a plan in place and while i don't know the details of it um i'm sure if you reached out to molly she would be able to give you that awesome thank you of course yes uber you have your hand though yeah i have one what i think is a quick question um you mentioned the dte sort of topping off the trees and and doing their pruning but i wonder what you think or if you have concerns about dte that they're currently doing the natural gas lines and digging up a lot of sidewalk and i've seen a lot of roots exposed during that process and i wonder if that's a concern of yours or if you have conversations with dte about it or coordinate your work around what they're doing yeah i always have concerns when anybody is going to be doing any kind of excavating um they had their uh right-of-way permits come through and i'm on the um review for anything that might impact a city tree so any utility installation of any kind if it has a potential to impact a city tree root i'm involved we keep track of what they're doing i can tell you in the past dte went outside the scope of their permits damaged a number i think it was five or six large landmark sugar maple trees uh you may or may not be aware sugar maple does not handle root disturbance well and um we ended up needing to have those trees removed and they had to go back and pay um all the removal fees uh huge canopy loss fees um a whole bunch of other stuff so we do watch them we do monitor them um to make sure that they are staying within the the parameters of their permits however if they do step outside of what has is allowable under the permits again i'm not always on site to see things if people are noticing things absolutely shoot an email um is the best way to reach me because i get my email on this this doesn't always have signal but it has enough internet and email gets through um so reach out um yeah thank you i see two hands uh it's me uh christopher graham tiffany um [Music] we had the rachel go through ann arbor in july of 1980 um the destruction of trees across the city was monumental um streets in anne or hills through the native forest fragment areas were completely impassable a lot of us went out to help um we got within a couple days one lane open it took weeks for the city to clean up the mess and um when these things happen it's just genuinely a lot of time people just have to be patient thankfully there's not been a direction to ann arbor or a tornado that i'm aware of that's been that's caused any sort of widespread damage since then so that's what 40 years the hope is it continues we have had some wind windstorm events where we've been locked up like even myself i'm in a vehicle looking for downed trees and getting service requests in and stuff um we have had that where we've pulled where the the director of public works molly is out in the vehicle assessing damage and stuff as well um and i think our response time is pretty good but we still it's just a matter of time it takes those trees are huge and they're heavy and um we can't just take anybody and and give them the tools that we use to do the work that needs to be done um so while we have backups there there will be some time the only thing that we try to to warn our residents against is just be aware when an event comes through you get a lot of people that show up who say that they're experts and know what they're doing and they are insured and residents don't know that and they get themselves into a tight spot because you know the person causes damage their property or something and they're not insured and it falls on the residents so we always want to make sure that they're hiring reputable companies if there's damage on their own property for their own private trees um and if we contract anything out you know we have contracts in place if we had to fall back on that we could you know davey tree um the same contract the parks uses mitchell tiffany thank you for hanging in on this um one more uh question about the the dte and the underground work um is there a time frame um for evaluating uh a tricky condition following work for example i had our neighborhood had the dte lines replaced last year um i expect actually that there will be some response by the trees because of the the roots i saw exposed and cut um so i just wondered if is is there like a two-year time lag or something where they're responsible oh on the right-of-way permits you mean yeah sorry um i don't know if there is or not normally it's we're out there and we see they're outside the scope of their work if they're doing work within the scope of their permit and the tree can't handle it then i don't i don't think so okay it's usually when people go outside it's um but if if you notice and sometimes there's not a lot i can do and sometimes there is it's going to be a case by case like you know the other times they went outside their scope they went outside where they were supposed to be and they went right up they were supposed to be putting line down the center of the road and they went and put it right up against the curb and excavated the curb out they were supposed to do so they were right up within like a two feet of these trunk you know clearly outside of their scope of approved work area and so yeah we could nail them um other times no it's not like a um like a site plan you know like when a tree dies within three years on an approved site plan they still might have to go back and mitigate that's what i was um for okay no but it's it's something for discussion isn't it though like moving forward is maybe there should be something um like that or they should put in for request for removal of the tree ahead of time which i stuff to mitigate for but i don't know it's a it's something i think about isn't it i'd be happy to have further conversations about that and whatever okay i have some photos from last year any other questions i think i went over my half hour allotment tiffany this was really great yeah now this was important and thank you so much tiffany for uh you know for uh bearing up here and i think we and the public have a much better idea of how the city is managing its forestry and how we can help city staff okay so so much and uh and take care of yourself we'll wait i promise we'll complete the survey and i'll get my favorite too yeah it'll be up until june 15th so you know you don't have to like rush right out there and do it but um june 15th we'll end up closing the survey so that we can download the results and go from there but um thank you for having me okay so um let's see the next item on the agenda and we're uh we're we're running late on time um so the next item on the agenda is uh municipal electric utility greg woodring is going to present uh to a presentation of the ann arbor for public power now my understanding is that this presentation has uh has is identical to one that was already presented to the energy commission and um i think and uh you know the the total slide deck is available for public records so i'm gonna i'd like to ask mr wooding if he would consider just covering slides 27 and 28 which are you know uh and field questions from the environmental commission these are the slides that uh deal with the process of creating a munis uh municipal utility and the comparison of seu versus municipalization and um i understand that i know the city council approved a feasibility study so we're already um we're already at the first or second step there outlined at page 27 so um mr woodring are you are you happy to do this or um kathy you have your hand out as an alternative could we postpone this until the june meeting because i think it's an important topic and it is very late yeah it is important so why don't we yeah why don't we do that um do i have a second um segmented by uh shannon gibrandall um all who approve postponing this presentation until the june meeting raise your hand um any um any opposed anything i just like to offer my apologies to mr woodridge and uh he stayed with us and i just think this is a more respectful approach to to have a full presentation in june no yeah i agree i agree kathy that would be the best job this does deserve much more time now than we have available today so um um thank you mr woodring for hanging on we will definitely have you on the agenda for next uh you know for next month which is june 26th 23rd june 23rd okay well uh sounds good thank you all for your time sorry sorry about that so um the next item on the agenda is unfinished business um we'll be uh i'll talk about there'll be a presentation about gilman ms4 notice a violation an update um is uh let's say i believe um hi steve dan vicknell yep hi again um is it possible for me to share a few slides well of course um we have uh we do have a permit we do have a yeah please um uh galen can make you the host so you can manage your own presentation uh but i'm hoping you can you can you can uh you know be brief and just cover the cover the important topics in the asks yes i think i can well i will yeah i know it's a complicated subject uh but uh we we have a document posted on legistar which is uh pretty pretty thorough in explaining the case right um galen can i share a few slides lisa you have your hand up yeah i just wanted to echo that indeed there is a very clear and thorough document posted on legistar so if we could uh cut to the chase which is i think very clear and self-explanatory and figure out what we are being asked to do other than know about this that would be excellent because it is already 8 26 and i think i don't know how much time is anticipated for the chapter 40 discussion um but i for one will not be able to stay longer than 9 30 as i had a 6 30 meeting this morning and have another 6 30 meeting tomorrow morning so i am i i just i can't this will ruin my health so um not that you all you all can stay on but i'm gonna have to well well steve maybe what i could do is just kind of uh summarize the uh the review because as as lisa was saying i had a chance to send out on may 17th to everyone the elected officials you all of course included uh the summary of um really kind of where we are as you all will remember um there was a resolution passed by ann arbor city council and the city environmental commission asking the water resources commissioner to please send a notice of violation uh to gelman sciences which has this uh four mile long one mile dioxane plume moving through the city uh which is entering into ellen creek drain and ellen creek drain is regulated by a federal municipal separate storm sewer permit ms4 permit and the water resources commissioner is responsible for administering that permit so in january 2021 uh he sent a notice of violation to gilman that you're not allowed to have dioxane enter into the allen creek dream and uh over the last year or so uh gelman and the assistant attorney general with support from the water resources commissioner has looked into what needs to be done and on february 1st of 2022 gilman sent a letter to the water resources commissioner and the state environmental agency eagle saying that the problems of the ms4 the federal ms4 permit will be addressed within the current court order remember there's a court order that covers the remediation of the gelman plume that's a state law uh that governs it it's a part 201 state law and so what that agreement says is essentially that you will have be able to have yemen will be able to have dioxane consistent with what's required under state regulations comply with this federal ms4 permit the rub is under the state regulations you can have up to 280 or more parts per billion of dioxane in the plume that goes into this allen creek drain but the federal permit says no no no you have to be below background levels and so the re the review and the evaluation and the agreement between the assistant attorney general and gellman is that you do not have to clean up to background levels before it enters this allen creek drain again the the problem is the assistant attorney general's view precipitates a situation where you have a state law that is less stringent than the federal requirements under the federal clean water act municipal separate storm sewer system permit okay so sorry sorry steve so so in short that's kind of where we are in the status and matter of fact the assistant attorney general has directed the water resources commissioner to essentially put aside the notice of violation yeah yeah uh yeah that was a very good document you forwarded to us and that we posted our registrar um so what's what legal remedies do you suggest are open to us well this is the problem we have isn't it i mean we're local citizens local government trying to deal with a problem that was created by a state attorney assistant attorney general and so my thought is that the best course of action is and really only viable regulatory option is they asked the federal government to come in and start an enforcement action against yellman on this federal clean water act ms4 permit violation and my thought is is that such an action will rightfully have the federal government manage the correction of this federal permit violation and not put the onus on the local governments to continue this compliance oversight responsibility i mean we it's just very similar to the the court order and the proposed fourth amended consent judgment it's a very bad deal that this assistant attorney general has put forth and it's a clear violation you cannot have a state law have less stringent requirements than that under federal law it's that simple but yet here we are yeah so i think the the recourse is to ask the federal government to come in and you know enforce what's required under these this uh federal uh ms4 permit okay so um in other words um we may we may draft a resolution and forward it to city council after we've had more discussion about this and uh we'll see staff and try to see what the options are you know okay yeah absolutely the other recourse is you know this was just the assistant attorney general um you know making this agreement we could ask dana nessl if she agrees with it as a matter of fact in in one of the card meetings a couple months ago we asked the assistant attorney general if the actual attorney general understood the situation that he's agreeing to have a state law take precedent over federal law and he said he didn't know whether uh the attorney general knew about this or not so that's another avenue is to ask dana whether she agrees with this okay those are both very good suggestions so i think we will be taking this up over the next month or two okay thank you are there any questions for dan let's see lisa dish and then um kathy i think kathy's hand was up first so i want to let her go first okay um first i just want to thank dan and and mention how uh valuable he is and we have someone in this community who is not only an expert in this area but has been very tenacious and that's what we need and has gone to the federal uh government so um a couple of things that i've done we have a new lobbyist at the federal level dikema and so i did mention um then that that you had a meeting with the congresswoman staff so that they were aware i don't think they're going to be able to help you and the congresswoman because i think you're more than capable of following this through but i did want to let them know and secondly we have a new city attorney in ann arbor and i suggested that she schedule a meeting with you dan because she's trying to understand the history of the galman plume and you're probably the only person that's going to be able to give a 30 minute overview that that she's going to understand might take longer but but you're very concise and you just did it so um i i think that would be very valuable and it would also provide a different perspective than just the the history from the uh from the lawyers to you thank you um lisa you have the floor thanks i just wanted to just lay out three points that i think we should make sure that we do some research around before we write any kind of a resolution and i think it's a great point that dan just brought up and great grateful for his work on this uh we should probably find out if the if the ag agrees with the aag um i'm curious to hear what evan pratt thinks of this report um i it's not clear to me that he i mean this is kind of out of his hands basically which i think he has said before that the state and the feds are fighting this out but nonetheless it might be a good idea to check in with him and then i definitely think that we need to before recommending any strategy that involves bringing the federal government in we should check with our lawyers around this and make sure that there's no conflicts in that because we have an epa process going on we have the consent judgment process going on and now we have this um ms4 permit which is distinct although wrapped up in all of that and so gil yaman just continues to be a mess upon a mess and so um i wanted us to make sure that we have feedback from everybody who's engaged in this process before we step into something um that we might not know what we could potentially be setting in motion and also like what is even the mechanism for bringing the federal government in that would probably be a lawsuit and i'm not sure how the city initiates that so and i mean that literally i don't know um so yeah i'll stop talking now because i think there's more expertise in the room well just to respond to a couple of of points lisa you are correct that evan pratt even though he holds the permit and he is the official person responsible for administrating and issuing this notice of violation has asked that the attorney general help out so he is really completely deferring to the assistant attorney general on this the second point is that what could happen is fairly easy if the federal government views that this uh permit violation has been going on for a long period of time which it has for three years and it should have been addressed immediately they can take over to notice a violation and bring in action themselves against gelman to demand compliance with the ms4 permit so it doesn't have to go to court doesn't have to do anything else it's just that instead of the state uh pursuing this or water resources commissioner pursuing this the federal government takes back and takes action on this particular permit but i agree with you that it would be good to understand these particulars okay so um kathy you still have your hand on um yes and i agree with lisa's uh third point that the legal department definitely needs to know what is happening and that's one of the reasons i mentioned it to the new city attorney and and offered to set up a meeting with dan bicknell because we he he really is the one with the expertise i'm not sure that we have employed our outside counsel on this ms4 permit violation in any way is that true dan i don't remember anything being written by outside counsel no the like you say there's this distinction between the proposed fourth amended consent judgment dealing with the part 201 regulations that that that governor the groundwater cleanup and then there's this federal ms4 permit and i don't believe that the city attorney has uh worked at all on this ms4 permit matter oh okay thanks i think that council had a resolution that initially came from the environmental commission that um was directed at evan pratt to take action that's correct okay yeah yeah so um yeah so all right dan thank you so much once again and um i think the action points here is that um you need we need to make um you need to have a conversation with the new city attorney as the first step and then um uh did i mistake you or did you say that evan pratt has already appealed this decision by the assistant attorney general to the attorney general no no sorry um evan has uh left this in the hands of the assistant attorney general he's deferred he's deferred completely to the assistant attorney general oh and yeah and the assistant attorney general was asked uh in a public meeting whether the attorney general dana nessel uh was aware of this problem and he said he did not know he had not raised this or cleared it if you will through her all righty well i'll okay so kathy maybe you can um maybe you can um just get the city attorney together with uh and i'll talk to evan pratt and myself and see what's going on there and then we can we can table any further action here until next month at the earliest once uh once we once we've passed through these steps satisfactorily you know i've got some advice and so we'll put this on the agenda uh dan as soon as possible in order to come up with a plan and uh in a public discussion okay if i can help please let me know farewell thank you yeah thank you once again so um so the next item on the agenda is chapter 40.

the tree city saddle club is a non-profit club that promotes the equine industry in decatur county we set out each year to provide a 500 scholarship to a deserving high school graduate that is continuing their education in equine veterinarian or an ag related field the recipient this year has exceeded all of our requirements to earn this award i would like to congratulate congratulate brian mick [Applause] good morning my name is matt weber and i'm the president of the greensburg community schools education foundation i joined the board in 2017 just two years after the foundation began since the beginning of our establishment our mission has been to raise funds to provide teacher grants and scholarships for greensburg community schools this year i'm pleased to announce that we are giving out five 1 000 scholarships i will note that one of the five scholarships comes from the class of 68.

[Applause] at this time i'd like to welcome back dr gad to the podium to announce this year's valedictorian and salutatorian [Music] could we have one more round of applause for these fabulous students we are so proud of you and proud of all of your accomplishments but most of all just proud of the people that you are these students are so supportive of one another and if you were our awards night ceremony you saw how they cheered each other on and that has been a theme for this group of kids they support each other they care about each other they care about their school and at the end of a mighty couple of years our students have really blossomed and i am just so so proud of you and i am thrilled to announce the next two students who will represent this class it is my pleasure indeed my distinct pleasure to announce this year's valedictorian and salutatorian the salutatorian for the class of 2022 is vincent zoo please stand [Applause] [Music] congratulations and the valedictorian for the class and when i announce you just stand like vincent did the valedictorian for the class of 2022 is tyler tan [Applause] we could not be prouder of each and every one of you so congratulations on the awards you've received today these honor cords serve as a visual representation of your accomplishments but when you're not wearing that award that honor cord carry the accomplishment right in your heart because that's where it truly lives it's quite an achievement you and your parents should feel justifiably proud so wear these at graduation and before we dismiss again thank you and thank you to all of our parents for coming out at this early hour and we have some some refreshments for you in the commons provided by mrs dadio's patisserie class so let's go and continue the celebration for a while and thank you all congratulations [Applause] [Music]

thank you all very much thank you all right moving on to item 3.01 uh do we have any public comments on 3.01 for president there's no public comment i don't see no rain no hands raised uh see none then we'll go ahead and ask for a do you have motion on the approval of school sponsorship or uh yes just a motion and a comment there uh i wish the meyer kids a good time at the carnival parade all right so they're not going to have a blast uh four oh well hold on i need a second second you know second by board clerk further questions or comments or members of the board i see your hand ups board member thank you um i just want to say congratulations to all the students who will be attending not just a carnival parade which is exciting in itself but also being with the le mundo i want to thank dele mundo for opening up and inviting our children to join them um in this once in a lifetime you know well once every four years but you know who knows they won't be um is it fourth graders or so it's like that that's what i wanted to clarify it's one student's per site one student is going to be representing the the nations that are going to be playing in the world cup that's exciting um and to you know represent the nations and to um see our community learn and understand beyond alum rock is amazing right and uh to join others in that celebration you know um that i i think you know during these times um although hard sometimes to do it considering everything are important to be able to come together and celebrate as community and do something positive and just raise raise that vibration you know um with one another so hope you all have a good time the staff i will be joining them as well and i wanted to thank the le mundo staff again thank you for the comments report well thank you telemundo for your excellent partnership uh appreciate the copita partnership and now just continuing on with this i know that that's going to be a memorable experience for all the children that are going to participate though i had a blast of field trips and then this one's going to be on a whole other level it um it beats the regular mission and stuff like that it's really going to make it happen so it's really really cool uh thanks to staff for i know that it could be easy to say just another more paperwork or something like that and um folks might be able to push back but appreciate the willingness of staff to jump on board and make it happen and be supportive of it rather than saying well i know it's just too much work other things so uh appreciate that um all right we have a motion in a second uh wherever travis has a question that's okay all right time-lapses we have motion in a second do we um and i'll go ahead and call you as i see you we've already called for public comment or remember travis oh yeah board member hi uh board restaurant aye for clerk aye my sophomore night motion passes unanimously all right um moving on to 4.01 approval ratification to approve let me finish up okay uh item 4.01 is approval ratification of senator grumman between ellen rock union elementary school district and uh elm rock educators association for the period of july 1st 2022 through june 30th 2023 um disclosure major major provisions that may be 1200 i have a motion by board vice president found out a second second second by board clerk uh any comments from the public there is one hand raised that's pretty good evening this is jocelyn mers president of the alum rock educators association i want to thank you trustee fam for your enthusiasm and hope that the other the rest of the board will be as supportive and to ratify this contract i apologize i'm kind of losing my voice tonight but um i'm very happy to have this agreement resolved prior to the end of the school year i do believe that it will make a difference in in um retaining some of our teachers and hopefully in recruiting for those positions that we will need to be filling for the fall so thank you for your anticipated approval of this ratification of this agreement there's no more further comment all right i'll go ahead and bring it back it looks like for uh four of us further found that santa uh yes well thank you mr president uh you know i'm happy to see this uh it's been a uh you know quite a journey on the at the negotiating table and uh you know this is a symbol of good faith between our district and the finest teachers in the city of san jose and i say that sincerely so uh you know this is uh what within the financial needs of this district and uh in today's times it uh behooves us that uh we show solidarity we understand what it what it takes and and what it means to teach in some of the most challenging times in public education so it is with that that i urge my colleagues to ratify the tentative agreement thank you for the comments from the board thank you um i i just want to uh congratulate the teachers the union the staff our district staff you know i know in the short term i'd like to you know being one of the youngers on this board uh that i've been on this board you know um this this job of coming together um to ensure that um our teachers have uh the pay um that you know the the most that we can do as a district and trying to figure out and you know um clover with crunching numbers in the moment and like i i know it um it's not easy um both on both sides um so i just want to congratulate everybody who's been a part of this process um and uh dr bauer i just want to ask you um one uh in with you as a superintendent um when was the last time that we um negotiated a contract in the moment from like the next for the next year this is the first time this is the first time so i just wanted to highlight that you know because that's huge and i know um you know we've been in other meetings right where we have you know 10 12 20 uh people coming here to speak um and you know i invite everybody and i i get excited when we have people come out um to share what they their thoughts are um and thank you jocelyn for being here today and speaking um in the public comment um but these are the things that i think are important to also make sure that our community that um our public understands you know what's happening here in alamark and where we're at now um and for many reasons you know i also acknowledge that you know uh the state um has been able to trickle down you know a little bit more pennies down to our district and um and that we're able to do these things but um also that you know every staff here is doing what it takes in order to be at a point like dr bauer said right now that it's the first time at least in the past how many years this is my eight year eight years and i'm sure beyond if we look past that that we're able to do this so um congratulations unions staff leaders sitting at those tables coming back looking at the numbers talking to your membership everybody you know had a very important part and so thank you for your job and thank you for getting this to where we're at now and i'm excited to um you know have this on our agenda today thank you further comments from the board all right so you know and then i'll go ahead and finish it with my comments um very very excited i haven't been here for the last decade uh to see this come to uh where we were able to resolve this within a reasonable amount of time uh was very um exciting uh and i hope that it's indicative of a new direction from both uh the administration uh as well as our bargaining unions and that we all can start uh moving in in a different direction it doesn't require a year-long uh protracted negotiations that we have what we have and we honestly put it out and we come to to an agreement that is fair that is reasonable uh for members of the public um want to make sure that we're all aware that uh we have a teacher crisis taking place um we have uh less people coming out of our teacher education programs every year than we did a decade ago and uh we're having difficulty attracting people into the profession uh because in all honesty who would want to go into a profession where you're being blamed for all the ills of society that somehow they fall squarely on your shoulders as the teacher and uh so it's it's all compounded it's becoming a reality now that society has kind of created and then when you start talking about uh teachers that are bilingual or that specialize in special education it's even a worse teacher shortage and so it's a huge price that we're facing so alum rock needs to be uh looking at what the remuneration that we provide our employees so that we can be competitive and attract and retain qualified teachers and so i'm very um heartened to see that there were provisions made to allow us to attract and retain some of our more specialized teachers as well as just the general increase in pay that we were able to provide as was mentioned before vice president found mentioned that that within our means and that it's a responsible and reasonable remuneration that we can provide here at elim rock and so as a result of that we see that we are able to continue to move forward with a positive budget that we're not qualified in all honesty for many years it seemed like that was the only thing that we were able to put out here on the rock and so it's the ship that allows us to be able to provide a responsible uh offer and that was accepted by our bargaining units and so i appreciate all sides uh the teachers for negotiating strongly for their members as that as rightly as they should i happen to be a member of the california federation teacher they're very proud member and they advocate for me so that i have the ability to provide for my family with the remuneration that i receive in my profession and so i completely understand uh the position of our partner needs here advocating for their members and i appreciate that i also appreciate the the administration's work to ensure that we're physically solvent and that we can provide what we can within our means and um and so i'm very very glad that we were able to reach a place where that works out for both sides and uh looking forward to to the future just seeing uh how we can continue in this uh in this direction in this in this manner so uh that said i'll go ahead and call you as i see you uh uh board member chavez no board member hi board vice president hi uh i with myself 49 motion passes 4-1 with chavez dissenting all right um uh uh we'll go ahead and move on to item 4.02 i've proven that okay uh 4.2 is being pulled uh per the administration's request we'll go ahead and move on to item 5.01 dr bart you want to go ahead and announce uh [Music] the items that will be discussed in closed session the following items will be discussing closed session uh item 503 all the way to 5 0 our conference delivered negotiations with different groups including teamsters csea and unrepresented employees item 506 is conference when they were negotiators agency designated representatives board of trustees employee organization unrepresented employee superintendent discussion action public employee discipline dismissal release as per echo 508 public employee appointment employment and those are a number of principal positions all right um is there any public comment with regards to any of these items that have been announced there is one person with their hand raised it is hi i am a teacher at renaissance at fisher it's not about anything on here but i sent an email out the other day to all of you and i was told to come speak um i'm just here to complain about the air conditioning in my classroom that has not all year has not worked i cannot teach i am not teaching i had an amazing project that i had planned for this week and next week i cancelled it because i just had covid so i had long covered and i'm very weak and in this heat i literally feel like i'm fainting by 12 pm maintenance has been into my classroom at least 10 times this year and they're my friends at this point like i know them by name they know me by name because they're always here and it's not an issue about the parts being backed up it really needs to be completely replaced i've moved my desk outside so that we do class outside i've tried switching classrooms like all of these things i'm very creative and i have like i can deal with a lot but i cannot deal with the 90 degree classroom and i am like i'm really over it i'm tired of it i i went to alamog i live down the street and i don't deserve this my students don't deserve this and i teach ethnic studies i'm one of the only like i'm one of the only people teaching this in the district and how am i supposed to teach my kids about equity and equality when we really cannot even like like it breaks my heart and then i have to keep my door closed because my kids are afraid that somebody's gonna come shoot us down so it's like i really am begging you all at this point to fix my ac this is ridiculous thank you all right at this point we're going to move on to 5.02 recess to close session uh we will get a 10 minute break yeah all right that makes sense uh we'll go ahead and reset this right now approximately right now it's a and um we'll resume at the end of closed section [Music] what time i'm sorry i couldn't hear that what time did he stay uh 7 21.

before i begin i would like to say that i dedicate the speech to my dear friend sydney i took this opportunity to speak because i know it was what she would have wanted i'm not one for public speaking but when i was presented with this opportunity i thought that this would be a great way to honor her during graduation she will always be remembered and always in our hearts the number 2022 has always been such an incomprehensible number to me ever since elementary school i always felt like it would take forever until we reached the year 2022 but here we are i'm so proud of all of us that made it here today i feel like we have learned so many lessons in high school not only inside the classroom but outside of the classroom as well high school is something that will forever be in the back of our minds some of us will always remember our first dance and some of us will remember our last one it has all been leading up to this moment the moment where we realize that we are growing up the moment we receive our high school diploma we have been working toward for several years the moment where we say goodbye to what we have known as our way of life and say hello to exciting new possibilities i've made so many great memories at anaheim from taking minion posters from school with sydney to staying after school in room 901 until anaheim achieves closed i'm thankful that i made the friends i did at anaheim high school i'm so grateful for all of you in my life and i hope to see you prosper in your futures you all deserve it thank you and congratulations class of it is now my distinct honor to introduce our principal mr robert saldivar who addressed the class of 2022 [Applause] thank you alan good afternoon family friends faculty dignitaries and of course our graduating class of 2022 please join me in honoring all the graduating seniors who have made many great contributions to anaheim high school i would like to recognize the following student groups graduates when your group is called please rise academic honor candidates [Applause] please sit a through g eligibility [Music] [Applause] please sit asb student leadership please sit california scholarship federation csf please sit career technical education pathways cte please sit google certificate completion policy dual language academy please sit golden state seal of merit please sit nationals honor society [Applause] please sit down seal of by literacy and try literacy please sit seal of civic engagement please sit congratulations students on all of your accomplishments i've learned that people will forget what you said people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel maya angelou straight stay true to yourself and make each day your masterpiece coach john wooden be the change you wish to see in the world muhammad gandhi class of 2022 each and every one of you has a story a story that has brought you to this very moment in your life a story that has prepared you for what's to come a story that will continue to help shape and define you as you begin a new chapter in your life behind the quotes of maya angelou coach john wooden and muhammad gandhi there is a powerful message that reminds me of the many stories adversities and successes that we have learned and witnessed from our graduating class of 2022 i would like to share some examples of the successes from the class of 2022 starting with our california democracy school distinction we are now leading the state in our district with 17 schools having this distinction our ahs dance program was formally invited to perform for the california dance education association dance festival 2022 where ahs dance production students performed alongside professionals professional dance companies college and university dance programs several of our apac students were selected as leads for a wonderful town and we have 40 students who will be attending the 2022 spirit of the macy awards in june our chamber singers received a superior rating at the southern california vocal association choral festival and our chamber singers and concert choir received a superior rating which is the highest of ratings at our auhsd district choral festival and at the music in the park festival our band program received many superior ratings this year with both the concert and jazz bands we had one of our highest scoring color guard teams in recent memory our band program was also chosen to represent ahs and our district in san diego at the st patrick's day parade our football program finished four and one in league in advance to the cif semifinals game our boys soccer team finished eight and two in league in advance of the division one division one ciaf playoffs for third for the third year in a row our girls soccer program went 9-1 in league and finished as league champs our girls swim program went 4-1 in league and finished as league champs for the second year in a row our girls volleyball team went 9-1 in league and finished as league champs our boys cross country program went 14-1 in league and finished as league champs our girls cross country program went undefeated 15-0 in league and finished his league champs for the second year in a row our softball program went undefeated 10-0 in league and finished as league champs for the third year in a row our boys volleyball team went undefeated 10-0 league and finishes league champs our girls track team went undefeated 5-0 and finished as league champs our girls basketball program went undefeated 10-0 in league and finished as league champs for the fourth year in a row by the way our girls basketball team has a 47 league game winning streak that's over four years of being undefeated our baseball program went 9-1 in league and finished as league champs they advanced to the cif finals for the first time in over 40 years qualified for the state playoffs which begin next week and by the way julian albiotti made history as a female student athlete and a male dominated sport by going 11-0 undefeated on the mound this year as a starting pitcher and the first ever female to start a cif finals game that is 12 of our sports programs going to combine 107 wins with only eight losses in league and 10 league championships and last but definitely not least how about the overall success of our 737 graduating seniors for the class of 2022.

without further ado let us begin at this time please stand for the presentation of the colors by jrotc and remain standing [Music] princess it is my pleasure to introduce our student ambassador esmeralda ferragrino who will now lead us in the pledge of allegiance thank you please stand please place your right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please remain standing as we welcome fiona marie for maron as she sings the national anthem [Applause] oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we have at the twilight's last gleaming who's brought stripes and bright stars through the pair release fight or the round parts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs [Music] that our flag was still there oh say does that star spangled [Music] [Applause] wow [Applause] thank you please be seated i would like to begin the ceremony by introducing our distinguished guests mr al jabbar president of our board of trustees ms anne-marie randall trejo member of our board of trustees dr jaren freed assistant superintendent of educational services mr manuel colon chief academic officer we would like to take the time to thank the best principal ever dr hernandez and our awesome assistant principals mrs lorena stout mr angel acosta and mr bob harrigie in addition we would like to thank our teachers counselors and all staff who have all worked hard to make sure that we made it to this moment today it is my pleasure to introduce the senior class officers andrea salceda alex mondragon isabella chaires riscella zamora and incoming asb president alejandro toro for the presentation of the senior gift [Applause] [Music] it is my pleasure to introduce the senior class officers my bad i am proud to present the class of 2022's gift to katella high school and gratitude for all catella high school has given to us our gift will be 500 for the class of 2026.

[Music] kennedy graduates please stand [Music] it gives me great pleasure and an honor to present the class of 2022 to the board of trustees for certification [Applause] as a trustee for the anaheim union high school district it is my honor and privilege to officially certify that the students present here today from the class of 2022 have all duly met the requirements of the state of california and have completed the prescribed course of study established by the anaheim union high school district students you may now move your tassel from right to left congratulations [Applause] class of 2022 congratulations on your achievement you are now alumni of john f kennedy high school k high for life graduates would you please remain standing for the playing of our alma mater performed by our very own kennedy symphonic band the lyrics for the alma mater on the back of the graduation program [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] congratulations please be seated graduates graduates please be seated thank you for attending the 2022 commencement ceremony for john f kennedy high school families friends please remain seated until class of 22 has exited the stadium remember to take all items with you as you access the stadium and please meet your graduates at your vehicles uh graduates when prompted by yours by staff you will exit down the middle roll aisle and then on your left beginning with the first row at this time i'd like to exit the vips on stage [Music] if you want [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] huh [Music] so [Music] so [Music] blue [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] huh [Music] uh you