001Executive Session. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Yes. Yes, motion passes by all. I make a motion to uphold the recommendation of expulsion with the understanding that the guardians can provide a written request to appeal the expulsion in one year with evidence of improvement. Second. Motion's in May by Board Member Quintero, seconded by Arredondo. All those in favor? Yes. Yes, motion passes by all. mr president i move that we adjourn from the uh five o'clock executive meeting motions have been made and seconded all those in favor yes yes motion passes by all good evening welcome to our board we're a little late roll call please President Michael Flores. Here. Vice President Linda Heath. Here. Governing Member Chris Gillespie. Here. Governing Member George Arradondo. Here. Governing Member Victoria Quintero. Here. We have quorum. Welcome everyone.
002Welcome and happy graduation season. If we can all stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the... All right, moving on to the approval of the agenda. I make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor? Yes. Yes, motion passes by all. Moving on to public participation. All right, presentations. Presented by Dr. Natea Ferguson. Good evening. Just to hit a few points, I know we have a couple of groups from our campus here tonight as well. Just wanted to mention our track finishers. We actually had four students compete for state in track. Had one get really, really close to making it to all-division state and just fell just shy. He actually took fourth in the 100-meter and sixth in the long jump, so that was fabulous
003for our track team. He's coming back next year and so are the others. So it should be another great season for us. We also had our seals presentation that's ever growing every year. And so we're actually up to 61 diploma seals this year. So fabulous numbers always moving in the right direction. We had four students recognized at our chief Azul awards banquet this past weekend. So that's always fun to see. It's a great event for our students as well. Just some of the chapters, in addition to what we talked about last month, we had our skills come in as a gold chapter. We have our JAG program, which you'll hear from tonight, as our national outstanding chapter. And then I also wanted to mention ECE. They actually had 42? 44. 44. That's what we were
004going back and forth, 42, 44. 44 students. certified through CAC. So they will be at their graduation getting their certificate this weekend. So fabulous things. Tonight we have band. Tomorrow night we have our honors night for top 10 and all of our scholarships. And then of course our graduation next Thursday. So that's CHS. Thank you. Principal Gonzalez. Good evening. Just a few short updates as part of our career and college and career readiness over at Coolidge alternative program close virtual academy We hosted the as of app testing they're doing a little bit different now. They're actually leaving it up to the sites to do that So our wonderful counselor, mr. Latham handled all of the process for that So we tested all students 11th and 12th graders for both both sites Continuing on with our
005graduation, of course, that ceremony is next week. Currently, we have 29 from CAP and 27 from CVA for a total of 56. We have some more that are just right there, so they probably will cross the line and finish up. Our ceremony, our second annual standalone ceremony will take place next Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Performing Arts Center. And I do have invitations for each of you. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Dix. So we had our semester two awards night on Monday night and we were able to recognize 118 students who had met the categories of show up, step up, and come up. So in the show up category, we had honor rolls. So 71 students earned our highest level of honor roll, which is a 3.85 to a 4.0. We had perfect attendance by
00615 students. And then our character awards that were nominated by teachers, we had 22 students that were recognized as having amazing character and having either made amazing gains this year or having just shown kindness and character in the classroom. So 118 students that received awards and pins and medals and ribbons. And it was a really wonderful night. We also have 28 seventh grade students that are going to be inducted. into the NJHS and they have their induction ceremony tomorrow night in the Coolidge Junior High gym and that's at 530. You are welcome to join us for that. The outgoing eighth grade students in NJHS had their banquet tonight where they received their certificates and awards. It was a really nice reception that they had tonight in the media center. Their sponsor is Kristi Jones and
007she did a nice job organizing that and made it look. It was a very special night for those students. Our FFA is continuing to do amazing things. And Mrs. Coates had put in for another grant and was awarded it. So we have 18 more jackets for FFA that are coming for the students, those beautiful blue embroidered ones. They had their FFA wrap-up banquet this last week. And it was amazing to see all those junior high kids wearing their beautiful navy blue. as they were around the room. So it was really a beautiful sight. She has 18 more of those coming. So she's doing a good job of getting those for our students so that they have that. And last but not least, we had an amazing seventh grade student that got spotlighted last night at
008the Elks Banquet. Blessing Javier, she is a seventh grade student, and she submitted two different essays, one on Americanism and one on drug awareness, and both of them won the local chapter, so she got first place for both of those. They both went to the state level. They both won at the state level. And then her essay on Americanism went to the national level for Elks and it won first place at the national level as well. So it was a really wonderful night seeing her recognized for that. They read both of the essays out loud. They were absolutely phenomenal. The teachers offered this up as an extra credit assignment for any of the students that wanted to take part of that. So she got double prizes for that, some extra credit in class, as well
009as getting recognized by the Elks last night. So great things happen at the junior high. Thank you. Thank you. Principal Bruna. Thank you, Dr. Dix, for warming up the crowd. At Heartland Ranch, a lot's been happening the last couple of months. On April 21st, Heartland Ranch has reclaimed the throne of the Battle of the Books trophy from West School, back where it belongs. It was a very hard-fought contest and a nearly flawless victory for our girls. I believe they're all out of Ms. Gillespie's class. We can't get the trophy back. It's in the classroom. I think it lives there now. They're very proud about that. On May 7th, we had our annual spring concerts last week for our K-5 students and dance and singing routines. Students did a great job dancing, did a great job
010singing. The parents were real happy with seeing how their babies performed, especially the littles, the first graders doing some of those dance moves. They're pretty intense with them. They took it seriously and had a great time with that. So we wanted to thank Ms. Cordova and Ms. Fisher for putting on a great show. Also on May 7th, we had our kindergarten mom spa where we invited all of our mothers and grandmothers, aunts and guardians to come in, and we basically turned our kindergartners into spa workers. So they gave them manicures and little gel facials and treated them, gave them the works and stuff like that, and gave them cookies and juices. It was a great, great... time had by all and for those who didn't have one we we rented out some teachers that came
011in and filled in so it was it was a great time recognizing all of our great mothers we are in the process of finishing up compiling our end of the year data just before the meeting i was putting in a lot of data from our dibble scores for our mower reports and looking at where the beginning of the year was and the charts that i was using i was filling in mostly far as fall below well below and then this time it was actually more on the other end of it it was only a couple of those and it was a lot more of a approaching meeting and exceeding so far on the kindergarten through second grade ones that I've done so we're happy with those results so far and then we've just started looking
012at our benchmark scores from this most recent benchmark and even just looking at the first grade and the math their class average or grade level average started off at 41% and then went to 59 and now they're at 77%. So our students are growing at Heartland as we'd like them. This past Saturday, some of our Heartland Ranch students were recognized by the Arizona. Council for Economic Education. I remember that one. Basically, our fifth grade students participated in something called the Stock Market Game in Ms. Baker's fifth grade social studies class. About 10,000 students in Arizona participated in this game. The students get a fictional $100,000 to start off with and invest and kind of learn how the stock market works. And there's a spring version, a fall version, and an all-year version. I'm proud to
013report that three of our fifth grade girls At Heartland, got third place in the all-around all-year game. And most of the other schools that we were competing with were Charter School of Business Management and such and such. So schools tailored to business, and then our little school here in Coolidge went up there. So it was a great recognition. They honored at a great banquet up in Glendale this past Saturday. And then just a couple of things happening next week. On Tuesday at 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock, we have our kindergarten graduation. So if you really want to see some total cuteness, please come out to that at 9 and 10 o'clock. They were rehearsing their dance moves today. Got that song stuck in my head. Can't wait to get that out. And then on Friday
014at 9 o'clock, we have our fifth grade promotion. Thank you. Thank you. On Thursday, sorry. You're lucky we didn't make you dance. Kelly Ferguson. So at West, last week we had a really cool opportunity. We had a helicopter land in our field. I know I'm sure you saw it on Facebook. And so we tried to be proactive. Thankfully, we have Miss Amy on our campus. And so she tried to post ahead of time that there was no emergency because those were usually what we get. LifeNet One is a critical care out of Florence. They're based out of Florence. Their mechanic is one of the parents of one of our preschool students. And so they had reached out. And he's also the husband of one of our teachers. So they had reached out asking if they
015could come in. kind of do a show-and-tell day with a helicopter. So every class was able to come through, get in the helicopter. They were able to crawl through the helicopter. Coolidge Fire was there to kind of help coordinate the scene, and then the students were also able to then crawl through the fire truck as well. Every class came through over a couple hours span. Luckily they did not get called away early so everyone was able to see. They were able to go out and watch them land which they circled around before they land. So the kids really enjoyed that and it was a really exciting event and so we're hoping we'll have them back again next year. We just completed our awards assemblies today. Yesterday we had fourth and fifth grade. Today we had
016K through three. Our K through three students also performed their semester dance with Miss Cordova at their awards assemblies. So lots of academic awards. going out, progress awards and growth awards for our kiddos. We're wrapping up our year with pool days. We just finished two today. We have one more tomorrow. We have indoor inflatable day tomorrow. And then we have indoor field days next week to kind of wrap up our week to end our school year. And we're very excited and our kids are enjoying all the extra activities that they're getting. Thank you. All right, moving on to the CUSD staff of the year awards presented by Superintendent Don D. Hodge. I just need to be able to read what they are. All right, so I actually don't like being on this side. No, I'm
017just kidding. So we started this a couple of years ago when we revamped our mission and vision, and so we decided that we would like to start recognizing more of our staff, and so we came up with our Engage Challenge and Inspire Awards, and then last year was the first year we did like... a staff of the year and so i'm excited to be able to present these these are all nominated by colleagues everybody in the district is fair game everybody can be nominated this year we had a record uh 79 nominations which is fantastic and as we kind of go through this you'll see like that doesn't mean 79 people some people got a lot And so, which is interesting. So our first award is our Engage Award. And what I'll be reading tonight
018is basically a summary of what was conveyed to the committee regarding these individuals. And so our Engage Award goes to Tristan Gillespie. I'm going to make him stand here while I read some really nice things about him. So tonight we're proud to recognize Tristan Gillespie as a recipient of our Engage Award. When we think about what it truly means to engage students, colleagues, and a school community, Tristan exemplifies that in every sense of the word. He comes to work each day with positivity, energy, and a genuine passion for what he does. His enthusiasm for agriculture education is contagious, and his students feel that excitement every single day. What makes Tristan's... especially deserving of this recognition is that his impact extends far beyond his own classroom. He is always willing to collaborate support and assist teachers
019across the district because he understands that student success is a collective effort. He invests not only his in his own students but in the future of all CUSD students. Tristan continually seeks new opportunities for students including programs and national recognition. opportunities that broaden their experiences and help them see what is possible for their futures. Because of his commitment and excitement, students become engaged, motivated, and proud to be part of something bigger than themselves. Tristan represents the very best of Coolidge Unified through his dedication, collaboration, positivity, and unwavering commitment to students. It is truly a pleasure to work alongside him and witness the incredible impact he makes each day. Please join me in congratulating Tristan Gillespie on our 2026 Engage Award recipient. Our next award is our challenge award. And this award goes to Mrs. Cindy
020Hone. Cindy was nominated by several of her colleagues. And this is just a summary of what they had to say about her. So one of the things that makes Cindy so deserving of this recognition is the way she continuously challenges her students to reach their full potential. She does not allow students to settle for less than what they are capable of achieving because she truly believes in them and sees what they can become. When students struggle or fail to give their best effort, Cindy does not give up on them. Instead, she takes the time to pull them aside, talk with them, encourage them, and help them see that they are capable of more. She has a unique ability to gently push students beyond their comfort zones and inspire them to think deeper, work harder, and
021grow academically and personally. The impact of a teacher like Cindy is immeasurable. She helps students build confidence, perseverance, and pride in themselves. Her dedication, encouragement, and belief in her students make her a true inspiration to both students and colleagues alike. Please join me in congratulating Cindy Honey on receiving our Challenge Award. I don't know if this individual, is Anna Holland? Anna is here, I didn't see you back there. So our Inspire Award goes to Mrs. Anna Holland. With more than 30 years of experience, you can't tell by looking at her, my gosh, she brings not only knowledge and skill to her work, but also wisdom, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to students and colleagues. What makes Anna truly inspiring is the way she consistently goes above and beyond for others. She treats every student with
022patience, kindness, and respect, creating an environment where students feel safe, supported, and encouraged to succeed. Her care for students is genuine and it is reflected in the relationship she builds each day. Anne is also a tremendous source of support and inspiration for her colleagues. She willingly shares her experience, offers guidance, and leads by example through her professionalism, work ethic, and dedication. Those who work alongside her are better because of her influence and the standard of excellence she sets. Anna represents the very best of education and the best of CUSD. We're grateful for the lasting impact she continues to make on students, staff, and our community. Would you please join me in congratulating Mrs. Anna Holland on receiving our Inspire Award. And is Carmelo here? He didn't come. Okay. I know, I know. So... Carmelo Pinon
023is the lead custodian over at Heartland Ranch, and he was nominated as our Staff of the Year Award. I really wish that he had been here tonight. He was nominated by a record of nine individuals at Heartland Ranch and throughout the district. And so we'll make sure that Carmelo gets his award and make sure that, I don't know, do you want me to read his stuff? Yes. Okay. All right. So when people think about what makes a school feel welcoming, safe, and cared for, they often think about the environment around them. What makes Carmelo special is that he creates much more than a clean campus. He helps create the heart of Heartland Ranch Elementary. Time and time again, staff members shared that Carmelo goes above and beyond without hesitation. Whether it is responding immediately to
024a safety concern, helping staff and students wherever they need, or simply greeting everyone with a smile each morning, Carmelo approaches every task with kindness, pride, and an incredible work ethic. One nomination stated that the campus looks amazing every single day because of Carmelo's dedication. And another shared that students run to help him because they admire and appreciate him so much. That speaks volumes about the relationships he has built with our students and the example he sets for them daily. Carmelo is more than the custodian. He's a role model, a problem solver, a trusted adult, and an important part of the Heartland Ranch family. He demonstrates what it means to serve others with humility, consistency, and heart. His positivity is contagious, his reliability is unmatched, and his impact on the campus is felt by everyone who
025walks through the doors. Heartland is a better place because of Carmelo, and we're incredibly lucky for everything he does for students, staff, and families each and every day. Carmelo Pinon. All right, moving on to the honoring of retiring individuals. Okay, I'll do that one. All right, so we have actually four. I thought that we would have three here tonight. I'm hoping all three of them are here. We're going to start with Ms. Kim Ortiz. I'm going to make her stand here and embarrass her just a little bit. So I asked them a few questions and you know to begin with talking to Kim She's been teaching for 15 years, but has worked in education and for CSC USD for a total of 31 years She began her career at barely bears in 1991 where she
026worked there for nine years and then served as a paraprofessional in special education for two years before working in the special education office for five including substituting in behavior classrooms After earning her teaching degree, she became a long-term sub and then taught kinder for the last 15 years. Throughout her career, she's worked with a wide range of students, including infants and teen parents, students with special needs, and students with behavioral challenges. And for the last 15, all the little kinders. I don't know how she does that, but it's awesome. She's proudly worked for us for 31 years. I asked Kim... you know, what has been her favorite teaching experience and said she's loved every position she's held and all of the students she has worked with throughout her career, regardless of the challenges. Each experience
027has been meaningful and she would not change any part of her journey. And then I asked her what advice she would have for a new teacher just starting their career. And she said to have patience and remember that every student is unique and special in their own way. There is no perfect child. Build positive relationships with your students, accept them for who they are, and help them grow. Structure and routines are extremely important, especially for young learners. And most importantly, make your classroom fun and provide plenty of hands-on learning opportunities for students. Kim, I just want to thank you for all the years you have given to CUSD, so thank you. Is Eppie Schneider here tonight? There she is. I asked Eppie kind of the same questions. Evie has spent 30 years in education also,
028including her years of teaching in the Philippines. She's had many positions throughout her career. She taught in multi-age literacy teams, multi-age arithmetic teams. She was in Maricopa County Regional Schools and in CUSD and surrounding districts. She's taught first grade, second grade, third grade, has served as a master teacher, supporting and coaching teachers, and most recently has been at Heartland Ranch as our reading specialist. She's going to be very, very missed. She began her employment with CUSD in June of 2005. And, okay, here's a blast from the past, was hired by Mr. Macon Thompson. I asked her what has been her favorite teaching experience. She said she has truly enjoyed all of her years because she simply loved teaching and learning, but her favorite role was serving as a TAP master teacher. She found great fulfillment
029in observing, mentoring, coaching, and providing immediate feedback to teachers to help improve instruction and achieve school goals. Her advice to new teachers just starting their career. And I firmly believe that you must have a genuine love for both teaching and learning if you want longevity in this profession. Remember the importance of differentiated instruction, especially during Tier 2 small group instruction. Because not all students learn best in whole group settings. Implement the district approved curriculum with fidelity, thank you. And always remain focused on student growth. Most importantly, never underestimate the fulfillment that comes from making a difference in the life of a child, one student at a time. Epi Schneider. And our last retiree that we're going to honor tonight is Mr. Andy Daniels. Some nice things to say about Andy. And I don't know if
030you've ever driven by West School in the morning. You will undoubtedly find Andy out there walking students, greeting families. So we're honored to recognize a dedicated member of our CUSD family who has faithfully served our district and has been a fixture at West School since 1991. For more than three decades, he has worked as both a custodian and crossing guard, helping ensure that our schools are not only clean and welcoming, but also safe for students and families we serve each day. In roles that often happen quietly behind the scenes, he has made an incredible impact through his consistency, reliability, and care for others. What stands out most is the pride he takes in his work and the commitment he has shown to this district year after year. His dedication reflects the heart of public education,
031serving others, building relationships, and showing up every day ready to support students and schools in whatever way is needed. 35 years of service is an extraordinary accomplishment and the impact he has made on our district cannot truly be measured. We are incredibly grateful for his loyalty, hard work, and the example that he has set for so many over the years. Please join me in recognizing and celebrating Andy Daniels. All right, moving on to JAG, Jobs of Arizona's Graduates Program Presentation. I'm Catherine Sommer. I'm the JAG specialist at College High School, and I'm going to leave it up to my students to do the presentation. Good evening members of the board, administration, staff, families, and community members. My name is Cameron Pablo. Cool as JAG, Jobs for Arizona graduates is excited to share some exciting highlights
032and accomplishments from our year. This year has been full of growth, leadership, teamwork, and success. For our students through JAG, students have had opportunities to build career skills, leadership abilities, confidence, and connections within our school and community. One of the biggest highlights of our year was attending the Career Development Conference, also known as CDC, where students from across Arizona competed in leadership and career-based events. This year, Coolidge-Jack students competed in over 15 different competition events with 17 students representing our school. Our chapter earned first place Legacy Program of the Year, which recognizes the overall success, leadership, service, and impact of our program. This award reflects the hard work of dedication of all of our students throughout the year. We'll be hosting JAG Arizona and all JAG specialists at CHS on August 27th for the celebration
033of success. We also earned several additional state recognizations, including first place chapter apparel, Juliana Felix for the second year in a row. First place youth wellbeing, Selena Alvarado and Cameron Pablo. First place JAG promotional video, Joseph Marquez, Joseph Madrid, and Martiliano Lopez. First place ACEE Financial Literacy Program of the Year, Mixley Avila. We are also proud to recognize the many students who represented Coolidge Jag and additional competitive events including chapter display, cover design, division one and two, table setting, national anthem, financial budget, employability skills, the LinkedIn competition, creative decision making, UTI tire changing, chapter picture, and spirit of professionalism. The Love Project community service presentation. Because of their outstanding Performances at state level, Coolidge Jack qualified to attend National Career Development Conference in the events of promotional video, outstanding chapter, and financial budget. At the
034national level, our students continued to make Coolidge proud by earning a recognition at the national outstanding chapter, Cameron Pablo placing third in the nation for financial budget. And these accomplishments represent countless hours of preparation, leadership, and teamwork from our students. And most importantly, it shows professionalism, growth, and it demonstrates what we learn inside and outside of the classroom. and beyond the competitions JAG students participate in community service projects leadership development events and career exploration opportunities. Just recently we were able to hold a mental health awareness fair at our school for bring change to mind which is a part of our program and I don't know if you know this but this is mental health awareness month and so we got to kind of do some fun games with the students at our school, just some
035interactive games to help them, you know, like you matter, like you are enough to be here, like we're proud of you, like thank you for coming to school, but being able to help kind of brighten up their day was such an amazing thing, getting to witness, and I was just really excited to share that, so thank you. That's pretty much us in a nutshell. We just try to give them as many opportunities we are getting them ready for the next phase. My seniors I have 23 seniors. They all are going off in different paths. A majority of them are going to CAC. Some are going to the state universities. Some are going into trade schools. It's just a work in progress and we're going to get everyone through it. together getting FAFSA done scholarships. One
036highlight for us is everything for me has to be documented every day every minute what I do. So I am proud to say that out of my 23 seniors and not all of them got scholarships. That does break my heart. But we were up to six hundred and forty six thousand dollars of earned scholarships awarded for those 23 students. Oh yes I make everyone do the promise for the future. Everyone has to do it no matter what whether they're going primarily because you just live through experience where kids plan to go to university then it doesn't work out because expenses and then they have to come back and I just always want them to have a backup plan and not miss that opportunity. So because once you miss it you just can't get it back.
037But that is us in a nutshell and I appreciate these students of mine. They come with me no matter what to do our presentation. So thank you. Did these two students have anything to add? I mean, we don't want to leave them out. Juliana is my artistic one and who's won the t-shirt competition. She did an outstanding job for nationals and presented our program. That's one of the reasons we probably got national, an outstanding national chapter. Cameron placed third in the state, which is why he got to compete, and then he ended up placing third nationally. So out of 25 students. So he did amazing. We had a great time so thank you. Thank you guys. All right moving on to the ECE early childhood education program presentation. Good evening and thank you so much
038for allowing us to kind of come and present what we've been doing in our early childhood classes. But most of all we really want to highlight four of our students. We have three of them here tonight. As you may know we have four paid interns that work within our our school district. We have two that work at Heartland Ranch Elementary and we have two that work at West School Elementary and they are. paid professional paraeducators. What we love most about this is this is something we can't just replicate in a traditional classroom setting. So what they're getting is real world experience. And so I'm going to turn it over to them and they're going to kind of talk about their experience. They're going to introduce themselves, talk about where they've been and kind of what
039they want to do into the future and what being an intern has done for them. moving into the future. My name is Tiana Hall and I am a West paraprofessional at West Elementary School working with kindergarten students. I support two kindergarten classes throughout the day and assisting with instruction and daily activities. Some skills that I have learned are how to assist with how to assist during learning centers that focus on letters, numbers, and writing skills. I support classroom operations by passing out paper, sharpening pencils, and maintaining a clean and organized environment. I also escort students to the nurse and to their specials, helping ensure their safety and smooth transitioning throughout the day. Some responsibilities that I have are patience, communication, or no, some skills that I have are patience, communication skills, and how to build
040a relationship between the staff and the children. I have learned how to effectively support young learners independently, manage and maintain a classroom, and contribute to a positive and productive learning environment. This opportunity has allowed me to gain valuable insight into working in a field that interests me while experiencing the expectations of a real-world job. It has also helped me understand the steps necessary to prepare for my future career, including creating a professional resume, participating in formal interviews, and developing strong face-to-face communication skills. Hi, my name is Lexis. I'm a senior and I'm currently an intern paraprofessional at West Elementary School in two kindergarten classes. Some of my daily activities include helping students with classroom, assisting with small group instruction, preparing and organizing the classroom, and making copies. Always making copies. During this internship, I've learned
041that teaching requires patience, creativity, and genuine care. Watching students grow academically, socially, and emotionally has been the most rewarding part. This experience has helped me grow both personally and professionally, and it has strengthened my passion for helping others. It has also shown me skills that will help me in my future career as a nurse, possibly in pediatrics, as I continue to explore the path I want to take. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Molly Tucker, and I am one of the two paraeducators at Heartland Ranch Elementary. And I have gotten the opportunity to work in kindergarten classrooms, first grade classrooms, a second grade classroom. And I've gotten the opportunity to shadow the speech pathologist and the math interventionist. But most of the time, all the time. You will find me in the first grade
042classroom and having this opportunity has been really helpful in finding out about what I want to be when I grow up. That's the big question. And so I've had the opportunity. I like... opportunity I'm the kind of kid that I ask all the questions there's not a dumb question to me and so being able to shadow and see all of the different things that I get to do at the elementary school has been such a rewarding experience being able to see what it's like to not be the student and actually be someone that the kids look up to and ask questions to has been a whole completely different perspective it's kind of helped change the way I think in the way maybe they think And having this opportunity has been just, I can't even put
043it into words. It has just been incredible. Everyone at Heartland is absolutely incredible. They answer all of the questions that I ask. And I just want to say thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity. I definitely think that this has played part in who I am today, standing in front of you guys. I want to be a teacher. And so having this opportunity has been incredible. So thank you. They're going to make me cry. So I am so proud of them. And it's opportunities like these that truly make a difference. And it helps shape our workforce, but it shapes our own workforce. We are creating and growing our own. And before you go today, some of our ECE1 students, what they have created are toys. One of the highlights of the year is
044they create toys and most of them actually went out and made busy books. Our EC2 students dive into literacy and they write their own children's book. So please take your time sometime this evening to go over and read some of their books that they wrote. They're all authentic books that they had to come up with themselves. So thank you guys. All right. Moving on to the consent agenda. Mr. President, I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented. Second. Motion has been made by Board Member Arredondo, seconded by Board Member Quintero. All those in favor? Yes. Yes. Motion passes by all. All right. Moving on to business. Discussion and possible action to approve the final budget revision for 2026. No one wanted to hear me talk. This is the final revision for the 2026
045budget. So what we do here is we take the most up-to-date ADM figures, we plug them into the state forms, and we calculate our final budget limit. Now we'll still have some minor ADM changes over the next month since this has been finalized right. ADE does reimburse us for that. So should there be some gain between the time I pulled these numbers and the end of the year they would reimburse us that funding on the next year's budget. Just a couple of highlights from this the final unweighted ADM so 2704 kids Kindergarten is in there at 0.5 and then CVA students are in there at 0.95 This year's budget did include one-time funding for DAA district additional assistance, free and reduced lunch. Those were two things that the state put in there as one-time monies
046that are calculated based on our overall enrollment. On page one, I wanted to note that the increase and decrease listed in the last column, so it shows budget last year versus budget this year, and it gives an increase and decrease in each of those categories. This only represents the M&O budget. It's only one fund, so while you may see an increase or a decrease in one of these categories, one of these functions, it doesn't necessarily overall represent an increase or decrease in spending. in that category. We may move a teacher to a different fund. For instance, in kindergarten, we did this year code a couple of staff members to K-3 reading. We do get an allocation for K-3 reading and they do like to see a different code used for those expenditures. So things like
047that can just skew that grid and it doesn't necessarily mean that we're spending less in those categories. I do like to calculate our estimated instructional spend for the year, even though we're not done spending, just because it is something that is highly publicized in terms of instructional spending. Instructional spend for all funds, not just M&O, will come in roughly at 51.36%. It's down just a little bit from the prior year. This can be due to many things we did kind of Look and see what caused the hat and and try to drill down we bought Some iPad cases last year that contributed to that increase in instructional spend the other big piece was the early literacy grant So last year we received a hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars. We spent it all on instruction
048This year we only received roughly thirty thousand dollars. So that's something that we can't really make up but that's the reason for that we do still have summer school to calculate and that will go into all of that so those aren't finalized numbers, but This is the final budget revision. I'd be happy to answer any questions on that document. What's the projected carryover? that we may or may not have? 800,000 to a million. There's still a lot going on. Dan, we just had an AC unit go out on a bus to the tune of $17,000 on the 2023 bus. So things like that do come up. I would love it to be a million. That's the goal. So as we kind of... get down to the end there are some things that are hard to
049predict. I think we just had another student tuitioned out so that can be expensive. So those are still moving expenses but 800 to a million. And that's kind of where we've been in the past, correct? Yep. Thank you, Elizabeth. I make a motion to approve the final budget revision for 2026. Motion's been made by Vice President Heath, seconded by Board Member Gillespie. All those in favor? Yes. Yes, motion passes by all. All right, moving on to the discussion and possible action to discuss, amend if desired, and if deemed advisable to adopt a resolution ordering and calling a special bond election to be held in and for the district and authorizing the business services director to comply with certain sections of the Internal Revenue Code. So we're deciding to embark on this journey to hold a
050bond election this November. So there will also be a governing board election. So it does help us a bit in that we're not calling an election just for the bond, right? So we get a piggyback and we get a two-for-one deal since we'll already have a ballot measure. I'll go through this presentation. I tried to simplify the graphics and kind of not overcomplicate sometimes what our attorneys and bond counsel will put together for us. So the first table here shows you two calculations of assessed valuations throughout the district. The blue bar represents the value of property that's used to calculate our bonding capacity. The red bar shows the value of properties used to calculate the tax rate. I wish I knew why they decided to have two different valuations, but that's just a decision somebody
051made along the way. You'll see all the way to the right that the red bar jumps 32.73%. So our... The valuation that we are able to spread bond debt across has jumped 32.73%. That is something that our bond council has not seen before. That is something that we did dig in and research to see why. And that is due to solar properties in our district. So new solar properties within our district have helped grow our tax base. This does absolutely nothing for our budget. all it does is give us more to spread the bond debt across. So that is something that in this situation is very helpful to the remaining property owners and business owners throughout Coolidge because there's more to spread kind of the wealth across. So can I ask just one question? So
052what you're saying is... that this bond will not in any way raise taxes. It will not raise taxes based on our secondary tax rate that is already being assessed right now. Perfect, thank you. One more thing to the last slide. Our top 20-ish taxpayers make up 44% of our tax base. There's a lot of commercial properties, a lot of solar. There's over six solar companies there. And our second highest tax valued property in Coolidge is a brand new solar. I think it's a battery storage. And so that just helps. They came into this community and they are now a part of this calculation, right? Okay, so for historical tax rates. The orange bar shows our tax rate that is set by the state. So they do their calculations, they determine what their valuations are, and
053then they set the tax rate for all school districts in Arizona. That fluctuates with the state's budget and how they are going to meet the needs of all the school districts. The blue is our secondary tax rate, and that is how we repay our bonds. It has dropped over the past few years, and that is due to the growing valuation in Coolidge. So not only the solar properties, but all the new homes in the community as well. So the debt has kind of stayed the same, but we have more people to help pay. So everybody pays a smaller portion of the pie. So you can see how that has fallen. 25-26, our blue tax rate, our secondary tax rate, is right at $1.22. A little election history. So passage rates not great, but common. I
054don't think you see a lot of landslide elections out there. It's always usually very split. I think in 2019, the voter turnout was 24%. In some precincts, it was 6%. So that's how we arrived at the 52% passage rate, but it did pass in 2019. But those are our successful elections of the past. So Linda, to your question, this kind of shows our current outstanding debt service. And when we decide to sell bonds, which is different than an election, so you have an election that gives you the authorization to sell them, but then you pick when you sell them, how much you sell them for, and at what your desired interest rate will be. So all of that is methodical and you decide in what month and what year and how you're going to package
055those together. And our bond council has done a great job and worked with us over the past 10 years to make this table look the way it does. So you can see that in 2028 it drops off significantly. And they have structured that to be that way so that you can layer in your next bond sale nicely right above that and keep that bar steady. Once that drops off, you do have to go out to your taxpayers and say, can we please increase the tax rate to sell these bonds? At this point, we're not asking them to increase it. We're asking them to keep that steady across. The next slide discusses the tax impact. Unfortunately, in a voter pamphlet, we can't discuss it the way that I've discussed it in that there is no tax
056increase. You have to show the math based on the law. This is kind of how that pamphlet will look. It will give three different examples, a residential property, a commercial property, and agricultural property. The average monthly cost that it shows there is based on the repayment had we not had any other debt or any other drop in our tax rate. So of course we would be issuing debt. Of course there is a cost to that. The other side to that is we're already paying it, right? So that's where the keep it steady comes in. The ballot can't say that. The ballot will say the cost of this issuance itself. So this is, they'll calculate that for each. Value for tax purposes on the top one, a residential property, $100,000. That is different than a sales
057price, than... than anything you'll see a home listed for. Many of the homes built maybe in the 2010s in the Heartland Ranch area, they have a value for tax purposes right around $100,000. Many of your homes here in the original portion of Coolidge, you're anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000 in terms of a taxable value. For some that can still be high on what they're gonna see on their tax bill But it's a good even number because you can then divide you could quarter it and kind of do the math yourself if you were curious So that's the tax impact and here's the table that shows and you know for lack of better word proves the tax rate this is Layering in three the top The large Navy boxes in the top show hypothetical three bond
058sales so we would be asking the community to approve authorization up to 39 million around 2027 we would decide that we would sell 13 million in bonds. That is a number we feel confident that we could spend within three years. That's kind of the rule. Once you sell it, you have three years to spend. We don't want 39 million to spend in three years. That would be impossible, but it gives us a good number. So that would be the plan. And they layer that in so you can see that starts with the orange and starts to be repaid. After that three years, should you identify additional projects, you can go out to another bond sale. You could sell $5 million. You could sell $10 million. You could sell anything up to the remaining $39 million
059that your authorization is. We've historically kept it even. So hypothetically, we could sell another $13 million in bonds. 2033 it seems like really far away, but I probably said that in 2019 The same thing should we identify additional projects we could sell up to the 39 million Perhaps not, you know, it's up to and that's how that works If you do the maximum up to 39 million, I've put the red box around it You will see that they can layer all of that in and the tax rate will actually drop from $1.2325 to $1.20. And it stays steady through 2033, and then it does start to drop off again. Just how we saw the bars before. So you, if you desire, could layer in an additional bond and always stay at that $1.20 range. So
060what you're saying is we're not locked into spending that. Total amount. We can spend anything up to that amount. Yeah. But if we decide that we don't really have anything we need to get, it's all right to leave a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe you just sell the 13 and you stop there. Maybe the state of Arizona comes in and funds us. Right after the unicorns. Maybe they build us, you know, some new wings at our schools. You know, who knows? Maybe they give us school buses every year because we all need those. Alyssa, go back to like 2014. We actually left money on the table, correct? Yeah, so 2008, they did the same thing. They picked a number. And we did the last sale, yes, in 2014. And I think it was like
061six million or something along those lines. That was not up to the limit. I want to say it was like 20 something thousand dollars, 20 million left on the authorization. Because they went out for 55 million and then didn't spend all the way up to that. Yeah. And I wouldn't, I think I wouldn't recommend going too high. I do think. We could come up with and I have it in here a pretty good plan ten years is a long time to plan You know how you're gonna spend money, but I think we have a good idea and our district could use 39 million dollars But we may not find that that that is the need as we move down the road, correct? But for the 2019 bond you do plan to spend We we have
062sold it we have already gone through and we are in possession of the remainder of that 21 million the next slide just is Shows us the process and what would be our responsibility as we move through and lead up to November There are some things that we would need to do next advertise for comments for and against The election those would be in the pamphlet so if somebody did have something that they would like to say against it we would post that and Generally, we do have supporters that will give us a statement for the bond. So those are legal things that have to take place. We advertise those in a newspaper, I think for four consecutive weeks. And then we will gather those and we turn those into the Pinal County Superintendent's Office. We
063work with our attorneys to draft the pamphlets and then we do our due diligence in terms of educating the community on how we would spend the money, what we would like to do with the money. and then we do our very best to remind everybody of the rules of campaigning, the ability to not campaign. So we would educate everybody on that as we move forward. Me and Google as we go through the best ways. We're learning. We're learning as we go. Well, and I mean, yeah, that's the kind of stuff that you do not want to get wrong. So we will educate ourselves and make sure that we are up to date on the most current laws. And since we can't put on the ballot. that it's not going to change our tax rate, that's
064something we're going to have to really... Yes, that is factual information that we can absolutely share. Yeah, the ballot, we've all seen ballots. They have horrible language. Nobody knows what it's talking about, unfortunately. George has volunteered to dress up like a unicorn and spin a sign that says... Excellent, excellent. I did put some images up here. You know, to walk around our district and take away the things that bonds have purchased would be quite the different experience on all of our campuses. It's how we get anything that differentiates us from another district and it's how we get anything that... I mean, it's fun for kids outside of the classroom. So just some pictures of some of the things that we've done, the nice outdoor seating at Coolidge Junior High, the safety storefront at Heartland Ranch,
065the Performing Arts Center, all new rigging and... curtains there. That's something that the state would never fund for us to have. And some things you need to know that when we have been able to host multiple things on our campuses and JAG's gonna be able to host their state convention on our campus in August. We had FFA here this year. People don't understand what our facilities are like and what they look like and how striking they are when you drive up. Not just Coolidge High School, but when you look at the district as a whole, the upkeep and the condition of our buildings are actually incredible based on some of the age that they are. And that is because of having bonds available to create the upkeep that school facilities does not pay for. We'll
066still continue to utilize school facilities for everything that is eligible, but these are for those things above and beyond that create those opportunities for our students that they wouldn't normally get. And we're very appreciative to the community that they have the same vision to provide that, that we do. The last slide is potential budget scenarios. These aren't, you know, made up or just to put figures together. These are actual true research numbers. These are things that we've talked about in the past. We would be extremely transparent with the cost of things and what we plan to do I think it's on our website and we discuss it every October here but we do talk about everything that has been completed and We have stuck to our word and we have done what we have talked
067about Previously right if we've identified it as a bond project we have followed through with that and we've not changed something drastically throughout the course The first 13 million, you can see there are a lot of items there. It's planned, right? We know what, within the next three years, the district would need. We know what the cost of things are. As we carry on, there's room to change. There's room to say, you know, that's not a priority. We don't want to do that. There's room to delete the entire last. So it's something that we can work on over time, but we would want to be extremely transparent with the community on what we would do. A couple things I just want to point off that the EPC payoff that is debt service we have on
068an energy performance contract for putting in motion sensors and energy efficient lighting and the controls that we can do that are network based so we can control the HVAC systems district wide from the internet. We can put programs on to say things are gonna shut off Thursday at five o'clock and they're not gonna boot back up till Monday morning. So they're energy savings measures. However, it does come with debt service. So paying that off would relieve M&O of $206,000 annually. So that's something that's nice that would go back into our maintenance and operations budget. I like that I'm seeing the metal detectors and then of course the cafeteria equipment. Yes, if you had the opportunity to walk in the Coolidge High School cafeteria kitchen, it's 1965 back there. Is it even that? So it can
069definitely use some new equipment. Our walk-ins, we baby them, we fix them. I think they're still cooking by candlelight, right? Now the school facilities board has helped us with some walk-ins. That is something that is imperative, right, to serving, but things, we have some new ovens, a new combi oven at Coolidge High School that I'm sure the other sites would love to have something like that where you can kind of still create that fried food experience without being fried. So these are all things that the school facilities board would never help us with. We definitely don't want to spend money on something that we could apply for assistance with. As we move on, these are things that would be up to the board, would be up to the community, would be up to what do
070the masses want. We have the second portion of the field house here. That would be some covered outdoor practice space. So you could have room for band, for football, for any field sports, even baseball and softball to have covered. Is that the PII? Yeah, part two, phase two. Oh, phase two. And so we would do some fans and things to where they could just be out of the elements during the summertime. If that's something that athletes are interested in, that the community thinks is a priority, heat becomes a bigger issue to us all every single summer. The one I have in italics, parking shade. Of course, that is a comfort thing for all staff, right? This would be at the sites only. I'm sure the staff would love to have shaded parking. We have looked
071at in the past putting solar on shaded parking, and we have determined that it would cover most, if not all, of the utility spend at those sites. However... Not everybody is a fan of solar panels and we would want to make sure that that is something that the community would want to see and to spend resources on. But that's something that would have a payback, directly back to M&O. As we get all the way to the final potential sale in 2033, I have some money set aside there for potentially doing a heavy remodel to the CTE wing, the 500 wing at Coolidge High School. That will always be there. That will be the 500 wing forever. No one is going to fix it for us. The school facilities board may say, you're welcome to tear
072it down. We've deemed it that we're no longer going to support it. But the square footage at Coolidge High School would never support the rebuild of it by the school facilities board. So if we want that dedicated CTE space, that's up to the district and the community to support. So that's something that we could potentially look at as well. So we can add to this. Well, you see the bottom number in the light blue. You could 100% take away from this and add to it. But I just, we want to show everybody that we, this is how we came up with 39 million. This is how we're planning and it's not just 39 sounds good or. Yeah, it's not an arbitrary number like out in space, right? Yeah. What's your tech cost? What is that,
073refresh or? Refresh for student and staff technology. You know, it's really hard to say. We've talked about maybe. Maybe technology becomes less and less as a everyday part of a student's day, you know, maybe not. But yeah, that's what that is, you know, replacing student technology, staff technology, things like that. It doesn't include anything network related. We do get that funded through E-Rate. So your baseball, on the first iteration, baseball-softball complex and the lights, that's a package deal, but you separate it? Yes, because it doesn't have to come together. We can put lights on the current two varsity fields that we have. That is a number that we've received a hard quote on. We know that's about what it would cost. A baseball-softball complex would be kind of finishing that out. It would be building.
074the other softball field so that there would be both a JV and a softball field and it would be equal to the baseball fields that we provide. It would be looking at access off of 9th Street with its own entry without the bus lane. So right now, if we were to use that, which is why we don't, you have to use the bus lane to get in. Potential for maybe bathrooms back there. You know, we've had questions on, what's it called, where they sit from the nancer stand? Oh, like a crow's nest? Crow's nest. You know, shaded seating. We put shade out there, but we all know the sun is wherever the sun is at the time. So more of an enclosed seating area. And the lights have been talked about for years and years
075and years, right? And so. Yeah, I mean, it's February, March, and April, you know, that they're out there, but it is, it's hot. And, you know, the sun can definitely pose problems to them, but. And it puts limits on their game times, too. Yeah, for sure. This was awesome to see all laid out. Yeah, this is very helpful. Best you've ever done, like. Yes, thank you. I mean, they're wonderful dreams, right? I would love to see it all come into fruition. I would love to see someday that. baseball softball field become a complex right they're kind of just fields dropped in the middle of campus right now you do have a lengthy walk to get there you utilize the student bathrooms that are block with nothing but block they're interesting bathrooms but it's not the
076most welcoming you know place to to host Once you get there and the fields are beautiful, right? But it's getting out there. It's finding your way, finding the parking, finding bathrooms. There's not any infrastructure for a concession area or anything like that. So it's unfinished. We do have the plans drawn for the softball field. That's kind of cool because I think if I remember correctly we paid about fifty eight thousand dollars for that to be drawn and that is Very much a discount as to what it would cost now to have those plans those as-built strong But we do have that to be kind of dropped right there To finish off that complex and have another softball field On the sample ballot, you said the rates will not be more than 12%. Where does that
077come from? It's just an absolute maximum. It has to include a maximum in the resolution, and I think it's a number that they are confident we would never get close to or exceed. So it's a safe number to put a maximum there. Our last bond sale, they were 5% across the board. interest why don't we put 10 or 8 i mean what's that's just the attorney's expertise advice yeah Yeah, they drafted all of those for us. The other thing is, you know, in the weeks leading up, even the night before we go out for a bond sale, we are communicating with the bond council and talking about, you know, I'm in these conversations with not as much knowledge as them, but they do include me. Like, you know, what's going on in the economy? Is
078it a good day to sell bonds? is the market saturated you know they have all of that information um they also have a good feel for the buyers right they'll know if there is somebody out there looking to invest in education so stifel has always led us very well they're they're big players in the game and so they're nice to have on our side for this so my reservations are this and part of it is The state legislature has put this in this position that we have to find ways to create our money, and I don't want them to get off scot-free by doing that. But, you know, it is what it is, I understand. The other part about it is, yeah, it's $39 million to me. It's steep. Yeah, it doesn't raise your taxes,
079but it's not going to lower it, you know. I get the sense if we had the 39 million, it's gonna be spent. That's what I'm seeing. I know the 55 didn't spend all, but the 21 did get spent. Then the second part, or third part I look at is how's this benefit the students as a whole and the community and things of that nature? To me, there's a lot of good information here. Let me pause for a second. Was this input from staff or the community or districtly staff? District and staff collectively over time. conversations that have been had. Of course, we have many conversations if we continue talking about the baseball complex as you're out there. There's always comments and questions and things on that facility. Now, much better this year now that we
080did put money into the fields themselves. However, everything outside of the gates is still there. So yeah, just collective knowledge and input from... people we've spoke to and knowledge we've collected over time. I appreciate that. So with that said, the other aspect I look at is what's the biggest bang for the buck? Baseball field will cover those people interested in baseball and all that. I understand how we present with other communities. Hey, you could have a tournament here and all that. But were these others, kinder shade, some of these other things are needed. I get that. You know the parking shade for their solar and the field house space too. Those are nice things to have but to me spending that money I'm on the fence on the CT wing part because I know the
081history and I've been there and I like to keep it but I also realize you know it costs money to do that so To support 39 million That steep in my book Yes, I understand we got to trust people whoever you know whoever's here the next six years the board Superintendent to do what's right, but I also worry about if the dynamics change from this community this board You know Things seem to be some weird stuff we show up that we didn't plan on or we may need to address something That wasn't on here as well. I get that but 39,000 I did some rough math, you know I mean, I'd be happy with $30 million, but that's just me. I get it. Like I said, I'm on the fence. If I add the CTE
082wing, it's $15.5 million less dollars we need. So I couldn't support $39, but if you want to go with $30, I'll support you. But that's me. Anyone else? Well, it is going to be. I'm sorry. Yeah, the 39 million, if you adopt the resolution tonight, that will be the authorization that would go on to the pamphlet. We could table it and we could come back. We'd be a little further in the process. I do believe in 2019 we adopted the resolutions in June, so it's not far off. We could also have a special meeting if that were the case. That was my question. When does this have to be done to meet the... the county ballot initiatives and all that. So they've already been told that we're going to hold an election. I don't know
083what is, what's the drop? So attorneys would like it now because they have to then draft the pamphlet. They have a lot of legal things they need to do. I believe, like in 2019, I think we did it in June and we pushed a little bit harder to get everything done. Or, you know, we can have a special meeting if it needed to continue to be discussed on the threshold of the authorization. Well, this, Mr. President, one thing that I look at things like this is community involvement. And I know it's going to be tough to try to get something out there to get this. It would also serve as a gauge to see what the community reaction is. If they don't, I mean. They're going to see this, and the way things are for
084the people, this is another tax bill. We're going to sell it, or if it goes to 39, you guys are going to sell it saying, it's not going to raise your taxes. Well, it's not going to reduce my taxes either. So we're in a dynamic environment with politics and the legislature. We're not knowing what's going to come out of there in this whole season, political season that's coming up. But with that said, it would be nice to at least break the ice to the community and say, hey, this is what we're looking at. This is the reason we're looking at it. It's been outlined here. But I also understand there's some time constraints there, too. But I'll leave it all to you all. I can make a motion to approve $30 million, or are you
085guys going to do it for $39? I move to approve $39 million. I second that. Motion's been made by Board Member Gillespie and seconded by Vice President Heath. All those in favor? Yes. Yes. No. Four yeses and one no. Motion passes. Moving on to... Thank you. Moving on to Human Resources. Approval of increase to substitution pay. Let Ben go ahead and take that one on. Yeah, pretty well laid out. What we'd like is $30 extra for each of our categories for our subs. If you do the math now, a sub, maybe I shouldn't say it, but I will, eight hours a day, 120 a day, it's like $15 an hour. It really is just not fair in terms of what's expected of subs. And then comparing that to local districts. um we're quite we're quite
086a bit less so 30 a day per category is what we're asking emergencies at 120 would go to 150. most of our subs are emergencies how are we compared to Others. So I can tell you that others, if we're thinking of really close, others. They also give an extra for Fridays, if you sub on Fridays, and on Mondays. Our trends aren't that, obviously we don't have Fridays, number one, but our trends aren't at a point where I think that it really is important for us to add that extra. But I do think we could watch the trends and if on Monday and Thursday there's a higher rate, we could come back and see if you want to add a little extra to those specific days. And I talked to Don about the sub pay and
087am very glad to hear that there is different criteria and pay for different certifications. Yeah, it is tiered. Yeah. Because... back in the Stone Age when I was teaching and then subbing, it wasn't. You could have someone walk off the street and they would get the same pay as someone who was a retired teacher. I think, remember Ardondo and I had the discussion and his question was about, okay, so a sub, how close are they then gonna be to like a first year teacher? And it's not even close. Like if they subbed every single day, it's still not close. I would make a motion to increase the substitute teacher pay. Second. Motion's been made by Board Member Quinteto, seconded by Board Member Garredondo. All those in favor? Yes. Motion passes by all. Moving on to
088the action discussion, governing board and or superintendent's report and update. So I'll try to keep it brief. We've had a long meeting tonight. So state still does not have a budget? But what has been proposed. keeps us in line with what we are accustomed to. So I'm not anticipating anything drastic as far as our budget. And so our projections for moving into next year and contracts that we have allotted so far, I think we should be fine based on kind of what has been proposed already. It's been vetoed, but my understanding is it'll come back around without major cuts to K-12. We've had so obviously graduation season is upon us so next week we have multiple things to attend Tuesday Wednesday Thursday we'll make sure that We have a quorum posted for those for your
089attendance for those We are starting to get test scores back We did get a Zella testing back and our Zella test is a test where we test our English language learners on their proficiency and While there has been some adjustment in the proficiency scores, we have seen a very quite substantial increase in our students that are becoming proficient. And so we'll be excited to talk about that in detail as those become absolutely finalized. We got preliminary ACT numbers, but then we got notification that those are incorrect as well. So they won't go down. They could only go up, which is helpful. So hopefully by the end of May, I think they said May 28th, but June 2nd at the very latest, that we would have those numbers for. For the a CT tests and then
090I don't know if you notice the field house continuing its progress It's painted you can see the the gray paint with kind of the blue striping on it right now. It's it's it's coming together So when it's done I'd love to have a tour. You will. In fact, we've already talked to the chamber about coming and helping us do a ribbon cutting ceremony. There will be a lovely plaque with all of your names on it. It was funny, we talked to the builders, they said they've always done that on new builds, they've never seen it on additions before, but we're putting it on an addition. It'll be a nice, we'll do a nice ceremony. You'll be able to walk through and see that once we have it all furbished. Yeah. until they took it down.
091Well, Miss Landy's name is still up on the wing over here. So yes, it is. It still says Betty Landy gym, even though there's no gym, but yes, there was. Yes, there was. That's all I have for you. I just want to say that I think our community really appreciates the appearance of our school. I think it is always kept up. It looks nice. And I think also it does something for the students. Yes. I mean, I can't, Say that personally because I'm not a student, but I do think you know when you're building looks good it just translates into Better education all around and I appreciate it and I appreciate all the thought that goes into it the painting even you know, yes the painting of the blue and keeping that up And again
092like the painting of the high school like we talked about that last month and how how much difference that just made in the in the school. But that was that was school facilities right. So so we didn't pay for that school for that was weatherization school facilities paid for that finally got it all approved. It's taken I don't know how many years that's taken to get it all approved but it did. And so now it's it's good for a little bit. Right. So yeah I mean we're excited about that. It looks beautiful. and if you go out there to the stadium now and you kind of see the kind of the way the flow goes that field house kind of just blends itself right into like the bleachers it kind of has that wraparound feel
093which is which is nice are you seeing this is it is an addition to what To the high school. Oh, I was going to say it doesn't attach. I thought you meant an addition. That's what they called it. It wasn't like building a new school or something. It is a brand new building. Yes, it is a brand new building. It was the old restrooms. It's an addition to those. The old restrooms with no doors. you got me again because i'm looking around and i still have the thickest out of everyone andy i think i wanted to make up for last month you said that you didn't have enough so i want to make you feel good mind that this president for me uh congratulations again to all the awardees tonight and the people that retired
094i know they're all gone but just wanted to appreciate everything that they've done and uh that it's nice to see all the ct class and the programs that you guys do and the staff and everybody that Everybody makes a difference, whether you're a custodian or groundskeeper, bus driver, everybody is important to the school system and I appreciate what everybody does and looking forward to the graduation ceremonies coming up and promotions and all that. So thank you very much. Did you send us something with the times for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? Yes. You did? Yes, they came in like a while ago. We can text it to you. No, just thank you. Thank you, Don, and thank you to everyone, all the staff, everyone for another awesome year. I mean, we definitely had some hiccups, right? We're
095still here. We're still here. And thank you so much for being supportive. And if there's anything I can do to be supportive of you, please don't hesitate to let me know. I really appreciate everything you do and the pride and work that everyone has into making our district just. shine, you know, I'm really, really happy to be working alongside all of you. So thank you so much. I will say I got a text message from Governor Lewis earlier this week and he will be at graduation and will be a guest speaker. So we're excited to have him. Oh, well, it is his last year. So it's his final term. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. All right. and make a motion to adjourn. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. All those in favor? Yes. Yes. Everyone have
096a good night. See you next week. This is the longest meeting ever.