001President Michael Flores here vice president president Linda Heath here governing member Chris Gillespie governing member George Arradondo governing member Victoria Quintero here with quorum to welcome everyone it's great to see a full crowd and at this moment let's go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands Good evening. I first wanted to start with some teacher classroom acknowledgements. We hired on a new geometry teacher this year and He's just been phenomenal and just hearing the comments from students and seeing how students are already receptive to what's going on. He's got them going on field trips all across campus, measuring steps and slopes and putting in the equations. And it's just been so fun to watch and
002see the engagement in a math class, which is not the typical. So that's been fun to see. And our dance teacher, of course, already been out to an aerial clinic and used our professionalism surveys that we have going out this year with all of our groups. Excellent feedback for our students. They had student... leaders present to the group that they were taking the aerial clinic from and just gave feedback and presented what it was about, all about professionalism and their actions when they leave CHS campus. So that's fun to see in action. We have state officers who have already started their visits to other schools. Our advisors have already been to CTSO conference. Our student council went to their leadership kickoff. So school is definitely up and running and rocking. So all good things there.
003And then just coming up, we've got quite a few things. We've got our some home volleyball games, September 11th and the 23rd are coming up next. Our next home football game, September 18th. We have a rivalry. blood drive on September 24th because that week we play Florence. So they the groups have actually combined and they are competing to see how many people they can get in for their blood drive. So super excited to see how that turns out. So as we hope as many people from Coolidge support our Coolidge High School and can get in to donate blood. September 25th we have our Hispanic Heritage Night and then September 30th we will end with our showcase our student showcase. So. See you, Jess. Thank you. Mr. Chapman. Hi, good evening. Before I highlight a couple
004of things with our campus at CAP and CVA, I want to recognize Dan McWilliams in transportation and Duke Thurman in maintenance and then their crew. They've been absolutely wonderful to work with. They always are, but this year our campus looks better than it's ever looked. The grass is green. The trees are green. They're accessible whenever we call them. They come over and help anything that we need. And so I just want to say thank you to Mr. McWilliams. To highlight a couple things on our campus, I know last month we discussed, or I discussed with you some annual goals that we were striving for this year. Those goals have been broken down into quarterly goals, and I know specifically we're targeting ELA and math, our two core areas. In our quarterly goals, I wanted to
005include Read 180 and our math interventionists. So hopefully before... October 15th or when our next board meeting is I'll have some numbers for you as far as what we've achieved and lastly also We do have a subgroup that we targeted fifth-year seniors that I know you're aware of we said by October 15th that all those fifth-year seniors would be recognized and Graduation audits would be completed and then a course of action and I'm proud to tell you that we're way ahead of schedule to have that completed, probably be completed in the next week or so. So we're way ahead of schedule from October 15th. And then lastly, I'd like to share with you some raw numbers of what our students have accomplished so far from the beginning of the year till now, as of this
006morning with CVA, they have completed 55 classes and 89% of those classes completed are core classes. I'm proud of them, but we have to get those numbers up. I think we can do better, but it's a good start. And then with CAP, they've completed 180 classes so far, and with a 90% pass rate in core classes. So my hat goes off to both of them. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. All right. Dr. Dix? So we took a little different approach this year and had one of our sixth grade ELA teachers become a writing teacher for us this year. And it is going so amazing. She actually was the spotlight for this month. She submitted pictures of projects that they've been working on in their class and it's really amazing. She is a phenomenal teacher. She's
007nationally board certified. And when she came in teaching ELA for us last year she said this is a need. And she said what can we do so that I can teach writing and just have a focus for this. So we got creative with scheduling and we're able to move her over. So every one of our sixth graders will have one semester of just immersive writing training, and they are doing an amazing job. Those kids, they have a smile on their face when you walk in there, and they are loving the topics that she's choosing, and the byproduct is they're learning the writing process. So we are really excited about that. We started our agriculture class for the first time this year, a full-time ag teacher. She got our own charter for FFA finalized, so we
008were accepted. We have a... junior high FFA charter and they went to a leadership summit today. So she took her newly appointed officers and they went to the leadership summit and they are rocking and rolling. Every time she comes into my office she's got a huge list of papers to sign and things they're doing and community service and it's just really exciting to see the excitement that she's drumming up with our students. They all had plants that they needed to take home over the long weekend because they've been growing them and. And they all had a goal to have them not die while at home. So like so far I have not heard of anyone who has had their plant die. And then lastly I wanted to invite you out to the choir performance the
009junior high choir the high school choir and West Choir all performing at the pack on September 18th. I believe it's at 6 o'clock. Yeah, so we'd like to invite you to come out and see that. Six o'clock on the 18th in the PAC. That class actually practices in the media center, so we get to hear them every morning, and they have been working really hard, so we're excited to have you come and listen to them. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Bruno. Good evening. Some of the happenings at Heartland Ranch since our last board meeting wanted to focus on our community events as we're trying to bring the community as much as we can this first quarter. Our students are doing amazing work in the classrooms. On August 27th we had our annual family arts and
010crafts night. In the past, I was told that we had like maybe 50 people show up. It was at capacity in the cafeteria. People were just continually coming and coming, and they had an amazing time, amazing turnout. We had raffle drawings for prizes. I already apologized to the parents in advance because a lot of them were craft projects with glitter. sequencey things so I figured maybe I'd loan them my vacuum cleaner or something because they were parents were kind of rolling their eyes when they saw what the prize the kids were picking but they all had an amazing time because the parents were making the crafts with the students and the students were just so excited to show off the things they were making we had seven stations they were rotating around so everybody had
011a chance to go and do different things for the couple hours they were doing that just a couple of invitations I'd like to extend out to you next or in a couple of weeks from tonight on the 24th we'll have our annual snack and paint heartland's take on the kind of sip and paint but it's a snack and paint and so uh miss berguson my sister principal and i will be leading the Bob Ross inspired painting for our students. She mentioned us getting some wigs. Yeah, we're working on that. That's what's in the budget, all right? But we already have a lot of interest in the students from last year wanting to come back for that. So it's just a really cute community event for that. And also an invitation on the next day, the
01225th, if you are in need of a pick-me-up at all, please come to the 25th at nine o'clock for our kindergarten alphabet parade. It is a combination of literacy letters and modeling. The kids wear their brown paper bags with their letters on it and they talk about the letters and the sounds and the kids in the other classes there are great levels are lining the hallways and the cheer them on and the kindergarteners just feel like a million bucks. So please if you can make it out to those would be great. And Mrs. Ferguson. At West last Saturday we had the opportunity to work with Campbell's Crew. They're an organization that we worked with at Christmas time that provided a shopping experience for some of our students. And so they wanted to provide another one
013for a back to school event. And so we took about 40 students up to the Walmart in Queen Creek again. The kids got about $100 worth of clothes and Walmart is amazing up there because they discount everything. And so that our kids got even more things. So just so that they were fully supplied for school, back to school, so that seeing the kids after we came back this week, they're like, oh, do you see my new shoes? Oh, look at my new shirt. Did you see? And so they're just so excited about the trip, and the parents are very thankful and grateful. They've invited us back at Christmas again. This time they want us to fill 150 slots, and so they have invited us to expand outside of West. So we're going to expand and
014invite Heartland and the junior high to come with us as well. And so our goal is to get all 150 slots filled. so that we can provide for some of our kiddos who maybe just need a little extra support and they make it such a fun trip they had snack bags for all the kids they had after after their shopping they got a pick from a bucket of toys so some of our kiddos had basketballs and Care Bears and so the kids had the best time and we just are excited to be able to share that with some of our other schools at Christmas as well so we're going to start working on that we had our honors dinner on August 28th we had a great turnout we almost ran out of room we were
015just talking tonight we might have to separate it out into two nights because we are hoping that we continue to grow and have more kids to celebrate every year. And so it's just a great turnout. The culinary from the high school they provided a delicious dinner and we had a great time and we were very excited that everybody showed up to celebrate their students. Our teachers are diligently preparing. I know it doesn't seem possible but parent teacher conferences are just a few weeks away at this point. So we're starting to prepare for those in a few weeks. So we're starting to get out schedules so that we can get as many parents in person to be able to meet with them as possible. And like Dr. Diggs said on the 18th we have our choir
016performance at the high school. And we also have quite a few of our K-5 students participating in the dance program that the CHS dance crew is putting on. So they have a performance they have practice this Friday and then they will perform at the halftime show at the football game on the 18th. And so they will also be performing there. So if you guys want to come out and see that we're excited to see some of our kids perform that as well as well as Heartland kids because it's for all K-5 students. and you might as well stay because we're doing the governing board outstanding character awards. Okay so Ms. Sheridan's gonna come help me with this one. So I'd like to call up my student ambassadors, Elena Antunes-Favella, Shayla Bale, Mariah Beecher, Johnny Carmona,
017Kinsley Coyle, Gwen Ferguson, Benjamin Hoover, Presley Murrieta, Emery Paddock, and Aliana Valenzuela. So they were nominated by Ms. Sheridan and myself. We are West our West School leadership. This month we are excited to nominate a group of student leaders at West School. When we made the change of not having parents on campus before school we had the idea to lend some assistance to students who might need a little extra support getting to class. We looked at our list of fourth and fifth grade students and selected a group that we felt would be welcoming and open to helping our younger friends on campus. The group we have chosen has stepped up and made a huge impact on our campus. The first week, all 10 students were present each morning. They helped walk kids to class, made
018conversations, and helped to make their younger counterparts feel safe and welcome. They now have an assigned day once each week, but it is not uncommon to see them on days they are not assigned. Some of our kindergartners revel in choosing which bigger friend is going to walk them to class each day. We're thankful for these leaders on our campus and their support each day. Great job, our school ambassadors. Mr. Bruno. I'd like to call up Heartland fourth grader, Adelina Aon. Adelina was nominated by her teacher, Mrs. Delgado. When I asked for student nominations, I think I got one back in about 45 seconds, she definitely was ready to nominate her, this amazing young lady, for this award. And this is what Mrs. Delgado had to say. Adelina is being recognized for her continual hard work,
019perseverance, and continued positive attitude in our classroom. She consistently gives her best effort, is always encouraging her classmates, and sets a strong example of leadership and kindness. Her determination and dedication have truly shined this year making her a role model for other students in a grade level and beyond. Adelina Aon. Dr. Dix. Coolidge Junior High would like to recognize Ava Rankin. Ava was nominated by Mrs. Boland her teacher and Mrs. Boland had the following to say. I would like to recognize Ava Rankin for the Student Character Award. Ava has shown tremendous growth this year and continues to set a positive example in the classroom. She is always willing to help classmates who are struggling and is a true friend to those around her. Ava contributes to a supportive and encouraging classroom environment. She also demonstrates
020strong responsibility by consistently checking her grades and working hard to maintain an A average. Way to come up, Ava. Mr. Chapman. Where's Robert? Robert, come on up. This is Robert Dunn, and he was recognized by not one, but two teachers, Ms. Diane Thompson and Mr. Chad Hendry. So they both collectively wrote something about him. Said, I had the privilege of teaching him last year, and this year he's in the senior class next door. He continues to impress me with his quiet, polite, and respectful demeanor. He is cordial with both peers and adults, takes his learning seriously, and maintains excellent attendance. He has hit the ground running this year. He is a lead by example type of student, is trustworthy, and comes to school every day and works hard. I wish I had three more like
021him. One particular moment stood out to me recently. As I was walking onto campus one morning, I noticed some trash on the grass. As I picked it up, Robert walked up towards me and asked what it was. Before I could throw it away, he quickly grabbed it from my hand. When I noticed another piece, he beat me to that one as well, then carried both to the trash. It may seem a little small gesture, but in reality, it reveals his character. For a high school student to take the initiative in such a thoughtful, respectful way is just uncommon. and I was generally impressed. For his consistent kindness, strong character, and quiet leadership by example, I believe Robert is deserving of this award. Please let me again congratulate Robert. And Dr. Ferguson. For CHS, it's Kelshawn
022Dixon. Kelshawn was nominated by Mrs. Cardona. She says, since the beginning of this school year, I have witnessed Kelshawn step into a true leadership role. In the hallways, he consistently supports staff by helping enforce school expectations, reminding students about cell phone and earbud policies, encouraging them to get to class on time, and modeling positive behavior. Beyond the classroom, Kelshawn has also become a strong leader on the football team. Each night and morning during game week, He shares inspirational quotes with his teammates lifting their spirits and motivating them to give their best effort. His words and actions have had a noticeable impact on team morale creating a culture of encouragement and unity. He participated in every spirit day and took the initiative to rally other students to join in. During pep assemblies he participated with no
023pushback and was willing to participate. So I want to just quickly add. I've known this young man since eighth grade year. His growth has just been phenomenal to watch, and I am just ecstatic to know you and how far you've come. And you are more than deserving. We love you, but if you nominate one of these guys, there wasn't any. Just totally blew right by it. Yes. Yeah, you will. Just got a lot of people moving and talking. I'd like to start our governing board outstanding service awards and Mr. Bruno please come on up. Education it's all about timing so I'm just going to wait a minute. Yeah. I have the absolute pleasure of recognizing. Harlan Ranch's amazing resource teacher, Miss Melissa Walker. Melissa was nominated by her para, Joanna Jordan, and unfortunately Miss Jordan
024was not able to be with us tonight, but she tasked me with making sure I embarrassed Melissa as much as I could. Miss Jordan said, Melissa Walker has been with the district for nine years and has made a lasting impact on both her students and staff. She is dedicated, dependable, and always goes above and beyond for those around her. Melissa builds strong connections with students. meeting both their academic and emotional needs, and creates a classroom environment where all children thrive. In addition to her classroom duties, she provides daily instruction to a homebound student and even supports my own child with her learning each week. Colleagues across the district seek out her advice and resources because of her knowledge, kindness, and willingness to help. Melissa's commitment, compassion, and professionalism make her an outstanding educator. She is
025truly deserving of this recognition. Ms. Melissa Walker. And Mrs. Ferguson. So West is excited to nominate Mr. Sam Honey this month. He's very reluctant. I think he's a little mad at me, but it's OK. This month West is honored to recognize Mr. Sam Honey. Sam is the man behind the scenes regarding all technology teams. He leads a team of IT technicians and jumps in to fix any and every issue that comes up. There is no problem too small that Sam is not willing to help with. He works above and beyond his title, working until a problem is fixed and keeping everyone informed along the way. Sam also runs the Performing Arts Center for our entire district. He has flooded with concerts, recitals, dance performances, plays, and other shows and events throughout the year, especially in
026December and May. Despite his over- overwhelming schedule, Sam shows up with a smile on his face and he stays calm under all the pressure. His playlists are always on point and he never misses a cue. Anytime technology is involved, there is always a possibility that something might not work perfectly the first time. The internet might be down, a cord might be unplugged, a microphone might not have sound, but there is no problem that Sam cannot fix. He is always there when we need him and he always goes the extra mile to make sure the job is done right. Sam's positive attitude and great sense of humor make him a delight to be around. He is honest and dependable. and he is dedicated to keeping CUSD on the cutting edge of technology. The force is strong
027with this young Jedi. In my zest to get to the awards, I forgot to have the approval of the agenda, so we really need to do that. So would anyone like to approve this agenda? I make a motion to approve the agenda. All those in favor? Yes. Now we are legal. Good. That's lovely. All right, next we have the consent agenda. And do I have any discussion on the consent agenda? Do I hear a second? All those in favor? Yes. Yes. Well, that's done. Now we have instruction, discussion, and possible action to approve diploma seals for CUSD high school students. So this will be our third year, I believe, providing the opportunity for students to earn diploma seals along with their high school diploma. And so each year we have to come back to the
028table and ask you to approve that. We still will do the four different areas, the arts proficiency, seal of biliteracy. seal of civic literacy and the seal of personal finance every single year we've had more and more students gain these seals it is i think turning into a statement of pride for each of them some of them are earning multiple each year which is fantastic and the work and dedication that takes for them to earn that seal just expands their wealth of knowledge as far as whether it's in personal finance or what civics is. And so hopefully you will continue with this and approve our students to continue earning these seals. Questions, discussion? That is right. That is correct. The only cost would be those areas that needed an assessment. And so we actually provide
029that. We pay for it depending on, I think with some languages, we have to provide the assessment and pay for that in some cases. And so we incur those costs. The additional cost for us as a district is to provide. a minimal stipend for those instructors that are overseeing the students completing these seals. But that is not anything the students have to pay. They do not. Good. Yes, and in fact, starting their freshman year, they are told about their opportunities and they continue to reiterate those to them. That was approved and now we just have governing board and or superintendent's reports. So I just have a couple of things for you. I was hoping that the remainder of our IT team would have stayed with us, but they left after Sam received his award. This
030month, next week, we celebrate National IT Professionals Day. I believe it's on the 16th, September 16th. Yeah, and so I just wanted to recognize those guys if they were gonna stay in but we do have a great IT team that support our teachers and students on all of our campuses and You know even me who forgets their password every now and then or gets locked out of something every now and then there they never Never a mean word, never a I told you to write this down or anything like that. So we really have some great individuals. Additionally, this month is National Arts and Education Month. I will tell you that one thing that I feel like we pride ourselves on is the opportunities that we provide our kids at each of the campuses. And
031we do have comprehensive fine arts at every single campus, whether that be music. Art, dance, band, choir, graphic arts, piano, guitar. It's exciting to see the opportunities that our kids get. And we have phenomenal teachers that take such an interest in our kids and provide them with opportunities that they just wouldn't get elsewhere. They get to go and... see performances by professional artists or dancers or you know to orchestra things it's just it's just great so we definitely are blessed to have great fine arts instructors with within the district and then finally you know it just struck me we had a leadership meeting prior to this And, you know, it's super easy to get discouraged about the state of where we're at in education and how the public views public school districts and public ed
032just in general. But all week this week, I have been reminded of why we do what we do. There have been countless stories this week of how phenomenal our kids are. I got an anonymous email over the weekend, not this past week, in the weekend prior, after the football game. It was our first win in over a year. Right now we have two, so that's even better. But it was our first win in over a year, and somebody took the time to email me anonymously to say that they watched our kids at the end of the game shaking hands with the student athletes from Chinle. And towards the end of the game, one of the Chinle athletes... was injured and was sitting on the end of the bench and did not get to go through
033that procession of the handshake. This person wrote and said that he watched every single one of our kids go and shake that kid's hand at the end and then go and do what our kids do at the end of a game. Dan McWilliams shared with me stories this week of contractors on our campuses. And as they are walking around, our campuses, and this is multiple campuses, our students, every time they say, good morning, hello, how are you, opening doors, just greeting people. And Dan, am I right that he said, like, what's going on here? We have trainers coming from Apple and they visited our classrooms and visited some of our teachers, visited with some of our kids. One thing that they were completely impressed with was the lack of cell phones that they saw on
034campuses. They said, how are you guys doing that? The second thing they said is how fantastic our kids and teachers are. Kids greeting them, being kind, asking. And in fact, LaShondra Moore, who works in curriculum, walked into the building and a gentleman greeted her and said, ma'am, can I help you? Are you one of our new subs today? And, you know, just little things like that that, you know, we have a lot of room to grow. And I know that. Some of my members of cabinet remind me all the time that we're creating fantastic human beings. And while we might not be tops in some areas, the human beings that our people are helping to create are fantastic. And I think that they are going to do us good in the future. So I'm just
035excited about that. And that's all I'm sharing tonight. Anyone else have any comments? You went too fast. But I really, as a parent, I really appreciate that, the announcements, the school announcements that come to your email and the progress report. And I kind of missed that the first, I thought, oh, they are gonna do that. And then there it came. It's that, it's a wonderful thing for a parent because you get it. Very consistently, you know where your kid is, if they've been absent. That is great. And you also get the announcements, so you know what's going on. I really like that. And there was another thing. Oh, I wanted to ask you, if the pledge, do you guys do the pledge as a school? I just wonder if my thoughts were triggered when I
036read that you're doing it, Kelly, at West, right? And then I got to know. So Andy actually does it it was kind of a collaboration between she and I that we would ask teachers to take photos of great things happening in their classroom and So we put some gift baskets together, and she solicits all of that. And, yeah, we want to just highlight all of the positive things happening. So, again, trying to combat the negative narrative of what is happening in public school and putting out the positive things that you can see happening in our classrooms. I just thought that was great. I wanted to tell Kelly we went to the West School Honors. I'm telling you, I came home and felt like I'd gone to a big party. We had so much fun. I
037don't know if it was just our table. Yeah, the food was great. We just had so much fun. Thank you for inviting us. I'd say the same thing because we had a marvelous time. The food was excellent, and the service. They even came around with that dessert cart twice. We were all really happy. Maybe that's what it was. Mrs. Hodge was talking about fine arts, and I remember as a second-grade teacher here in Coolidge District, taking my children to the symphony in Phoenix, and they were just so in awe before we ever got anywhere near a musician. We're walking into the symphony. They were looking at the chandeliers. And they were just like, they couldn't believe it was, they thought it was so gorgeous. We walked by a bust of Beethoven, and they were really
038concerned that there was only the head of the guy, and why was that? And I remember taking them also to the Phoenix Art Museum to see Monet and Renoir and Picasso, and having docents almost surround our group to make, because the paintings were right there. and there was no guard in between my little guys and those paintings but they were wonderful and what an experience so our district is above and beyond I think a lot of places I've been yes you hear the negative and families so everybody's playing a part in that so how you treat each other at home how you treat each other in the community at the stores and all that that's a reflection of our students so kudos to the families and the community for mirroring what you want and expecting
039your students appreciate all the work there appreciate all the work the superintendent is keeping us informed of all the different activities events are going on and reports there uh it's great to hear about the how do you manage the community's involvement and families and how to do i need to split up a couple of days the students are definitely a reflection of their home life, but also the teachers that are helping them, the staff that helps them. So thank you so much for just really feeding into the development of all of our kids. It's really showing. And when we get those compliments or we hear those things, I want to know, who's your teacher? Who do you hang out with at the school or who do you talk to? Just like that young man that
040was picking up the trash, I mean, that speaks volumes. And I'm so glad that he's at CAP and he's doing excellent. So, I mean, it's awesome to see all of the growth happening here. And also, I really love the classroom highlights, too. That is awesome. So, great job, Andy. Mikey, do you have anything to add? Oh, we lost him. Oh, darn. Well, I'm sure he would. And do I hear a motion to adjourn? Second. All those in favor? Yes. We are adjourned.