Show Low Unified School District Board Meeting for 9/16/21

001it wasn't me hi welcome to our september board meeting i'd like to ask for approval of the agenda emotion we approve the agenda a second all in favor aye opposed motion passes mrs schultz will lead us in the pledge please rise if you are able and mr larson will lead us in the i invocation allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for the richest man one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice our father and heaven we're grateful to be here this evening we're grateful for the opportunity to have this meeting and ask that would please direct us and guide us in the decisions we make that we'll be able to make those decisions that will affect the district as a whole and all of the stakeholders

002appropriate appropriately and beneficially we're grateful for those who serve in this district all those who work hard to bring education to our children and mostly we're great for the children and ask for a blessing upon all of them that all things will work to their advantage we ask that that would help us to go in safety this night help us to have a meeting that will be productive and do so in the name of jesus christ amen item 3.2 recognition of legendary staff mr housley madam president we have one this evening that we'd like to recognize and we'll invite you to go down for that if you would so choose and you might march into to come forward where is mr marshall there he is that's okay right thank you mr housley and members of

003the board and thanks coach maxwell for being here i know you love this sort of stuff so um i'm honored to present to you uh mr monty maxwell as the show high school legendary staff member for this month as a scholar high school graduate himself he truly bleeds green and gold in every way imaginable and we couldn't be more honored to have him serve as a teacher and coach for our students i could talk about his staff to show his greatness but instead i'm going to highlight his commitment to student excellence that outsiders may never get to see when you talk about having legendary staff members who put their heads down and work tirelessly with students in the trenches coach maxwell is at the top of the charts to this day i have not witnessed

004coach maxwell take a break from coaching ever um i'm sure he eats and sleeps probably but i haven't witnessed it um a decade ago when i was a young coach i had the privilege of watching coach maxwell in the spring at a track throwing practice after school and he was going up and down the line providing direction and motivation to each athlete the entire time and i took notes of his coaching technique and worked on implementing them in my own practice after a few days of implementing his techniques i was so tired i figured i must have caught coach maxwell on a good day or something uh but what i didn't realize was that this is how he is every single day um uh in addition one of his most admirable attributes is that his

005commitment to the students of show low high school runs family uh he is always with his wife and kids at games and practices and school events in fact yesterday i hope i don't get you in trouble yesterday was his wife tasha's birthday and to celebrate he took her on a first-class date to a beautiful lake to watch the cross-country meet i'm sure you took her out tonight after that but uh but uh yeah and and over the summer um well everyone else is long gone uh moni and tasha and granddad and the kids they spent weeks and weeks uh hours and hours of sweat completely renovating the weight room floor with rubber mat that would have cost the district over thirty thousand i think i underestimated that we were getting we're getting quote crazy quotes

006and and they went out and just spent weeks and weeks putting the floor in and redoing the whole thing it looks amazing now and they're gonna do it again for our inside weight room it's it's incredible what they've done what they do and all of this after running uh summer open field practice work so you'd be coaching in the morning and then go over there and fix the weight room and and all that so all in all coach maxwell is someone that i looked up to that as a coach an educator and a father and his tireless approach to building relationships with students and molding motivating them to be greater is something that i wish could be bottled up and sold to all educators um we're blessed to have him at school high school and

007i couldn't think of a better recipient of the legendary staff award thanks [Applause] all right [Applause] item 3.3 superintendents report mr housely thank you madam president i just want to give you a few brief updates and then i will invite mrs clark to come up and report on some happenings at the junior high uh first i'd like to recognize our uh three of our board members um i got word today that as part of our membership as as a board with years on the school board association board members have the opportunity to go through a number of courses and tracks i guess you could say that they're told where they learn specifically about certain things in board governance and they have different tiers of recognition and accomplishments that they can have in there la mista

008and kelly have both been on the board since january officially and apparently completed their certificate of orientation which is uh quite a number of classes that they go through and presentations and uh stacy anderson recently completed her uh copper recognition and i'm not sure what the highest is maybe titanium i don't know would you you know you've uh you've obtained the copper recognition so i'm grateful for you taking that effort to do that a little bit of a district office update um it is as everyone knows now it's finally demolished it is just a concrete pad we're working with the insurance we have a meeting with the architect coming up next week um part of the thing when you're working with an insurance claim is like in kind that's always going to be the discussion

009we'll build it back or give you back like in time right and so it's always an argument about what life and kind is um we found that out with the flood at the high school the carpet at the high school was the top tier type of a carpet well the insurance always says like and kind but when they saw there was a top pure carpet they're like so we have to remind them of that like and as we're going through the district office for innovation one of the challenges that we're facing and why it's taking so long is one it took six months for them to do the investigation and to figure out whether they were going to declare it a loss or not they have done that so that's good the second thing is

010um part of the district office problem is there was zero zero uh current 2021 code compliant pieces so that's another thing that we have to take into consideration if we build it back in this plot um exactly the way that it was with a little bit of wall configuration and they will build back including right which is great if we choose to move the building somewhere else or to completely enhance to an excessive degree the the shell of the building or the building as itself then they will eliminate code compliance funding from it which is a large portion so if we said we want you to value it out and cash us out we're going to build somewhere else or do something else they will remove the cool code compliance portion from our reef right

011so there's a lot of considerations that we're going through we hope that with the architect we could get a framework and a at a price to build and then figure out what what the appraised the devaluation of that would be and then be able to make a decision whether we're going to build that like it is or we're going to cash out and look at a different option so we'll be bringing that information to the board as we we get closer to that um in the meantime we'll just stay over there with the buffaloes let's continue to pay for that rental what's up will the insurance continue to pay for the rental space they will there are some timelines um and so there's a one-year timeline to make a decision which is january um then

012there's a two-year after that for total completion based on what our decision is so there are some timeline requirements inside of our insurance policy that we have to be aware of moving um we are um i know it was brought up about the ac units at the high school we worked and had been working very diligently with the sfb um to let you know where that stands with the sfb they did declare each of the units as a catastrophic failure in the high school as a whole okay they have to do that in order for them to fund the replacement however um in the interim they have put portable units in the classrooms that they needed them and they they vent into the attic and they're not the best solution in the world but they're

013the solution the sfb is picked up we can't we couldn't purchase those and have them pick up the bill so the company that we got them from is leasing them to the sfb um it's a three hundred thousand dollar bill for um in the meantime they're working on getting the air conditioning unit to be replaced um we don't even anticipate that even having a chance at happening until spring break at the early end i need the everyone in the board in particular to just understand when we're looking at construction timelines and things like that anything that has a chip or a motherboard like we've seen with vehicles is going to take some time air conditioning units are one of those things um there they have a long lead time already and now with the current

014way that things are it's even longer um so but we do have that in in motion the sfv will be uh covering that bill is our intent um the flooding for the most part all the places have been remediated i'm not i didn't say they were completed they've been remediated of of water and and they're built back to a point um they will finish uh the majority of the remainder of the work over fall break when when everyone's out um there are some things that we're working with with the flooring um where there was carpet in some of the high school hallways where we're exploring what it looks like to do a stained concrete um but we have to that's why that that like in kind is important because that higher value of carpet is

015important to us when we're looking at sustained value and trying to make sure that the insurance is covering the total um the classrooms uh for the most part around the district the barriers have been removed not all of them have we there is a room in particular at the junior high that we still aren't using um when they were going to pull the carpet out to remediate it the tile underneath has this messed up so they have to now re-remediate all that asbestos in that room until it's cleared from that so that is that is something that is a challenge as they're moving through um the auditorium we're still waiting for some clearances in the auditorium they've been working in there making sure that they can get it clean and get the air quality clear

016before they start to build back i'm anticipating getting some more updates from them here in the next little bit and then finally i know the board really appreciates i know i appreciate in every every child and family that's a beneficiary appreciate the backpack um those individuals who are really working to get back um backpacks sent home with with food in them um certainly we'd all offer the opportunity for you to share your appreciation if you'd like to in in this meeting but i know that there was a big effort i thought all around the community to collect resources for those backpacks and the generosity has just been overwhelming so we're grateful for those individuals that had a vision and went forward and put the boots on the ground to make that vision happen so we

017do appreciate them but you know how many backpacks i send out every week a lot i don't know how many specifically i don't have that number but i know that in the past i've seen them roll up to the district office open their big trunk and bring in all these votes and by the end of the day they're all gone so i know they're all full and uh it's really meaningful and impactful as a family do they have a needs list that people want to donate is posted somewhere do you have an amazon wishlist you have an amazon [Music] um i know last year that they did 75 backpacks and i'm sure there's more they also have a venmo you can venmo them money directly but then they can buy whatever they're short on and

018that's also at backpack snacks the venmo we're really we're really grateful for them um we have seen um leveling out a little bit of our increase in enrollment but with increased enrollment comes increased demands for needs you know we were raider uh right around 300-ish new students and and we're excited i'll invite mrs clark to come up and share a little bit about the junior high madam president members of the board i'm excited to be here tonight to represent um just to share a handful of things that we're doing that we're finding success and it's been it's been a long 18 months or so with kovid but we finally feel like we're turning the corner on some of these things so i just wanted to share some of those things with you tonight um before

019i start i do want to say that when i joined the junior high staff as a principal three years ago that everything i'm going to talk about started first as an idea that we came to as a staff and then we said this is what we're going to do and then our teachers just ran with it and rocked it so i can't say enough great things about them and their efforts um one of the things that we're really feeling like we're finding success with is our transition with our sixth grade schedule um we had originally that kind of modern high school setting where we were taking our sixth graders um in as fifth graders from a nice friendly self-contained classroom and throwing them into like a modern high school schedule so being able to block

020those classes and have those kids spend more time in their core content area has been really successful for us um so that transition looks a little bit like elementary school and a little bit like junior high and they're smiling and they're happy and that's something um in our seventh and eighth grade master schedule we went from a seven period day three years ago to a sixth period day and those extra eight minutes that we were able to build into classes are making a lot of difference for kids and um one kind of bright spot in that is we thought we were gonna have a hiccup in some of our electives specifically with regard to music because it was easy to have introductory music we were sixth grade and in advanced music meaning choir band and

021orchestra in our seventh and eighth grade but we had to have something intermediate so under the program that we had before um when we had a seven period day it was easy to bring a kid in kind of mid-screen mid-stream as a seventh grader if i want to start taking band as a seventh grader i could have but the sixth period day was a little more tricky but we were able to kind of massage that schedule a little bit we use our intervention time our win period in the middle of the day to try to help promote that and that's been really successful um our language arts professional learning communities did a really focused concerted effort on incorporating writing into their curriculum and that's been really successful kind of a more focused effort as a

022team certain quarters they focus on different styles of writing and that's helped students to feel more confident um we moved our daily math skills which is kind of a fluency and accuracy practice that was me in the middle of the day a couple of years ago and we moved it to the front of the day to try to bring kids in and get them going get their minds thinking about math and that kind of thing but in a low pressure environment it also gave us a little bit of a buffer so as kids were coming in tardy which sometimes they do you know it's a bad morning and the car won't start and you get there a little late they weren't missing core content because we had this ems class right in the beginning of

023the day and so we feel like that's been successful we were able to implement a reading skills class for students who aren't quite reading at grade level and need some extra practice with reading because when you get to the middle school it's less about learning to read and more about reading to learn but if you're struggling with reading as a practice you need a little more help with that so those students still have a regular language arts class but they also have as one of their elective periods a reading skills class so they can get some more practice on things like phonemic awareness letter recognition and reading comprehension and then for students who are right on the bubble maybe they're just really really close to proficiency we have a class for them it's called edge

024they're right on the edge and they participate in some activities to help them just have a little more time on task and we build them up and tell them you know you're right on the edge and we know you can do it and so we're seeing some success with that um we do have our friday interventions it's a little bit hard to measure those because last year was the first year and um with remote learning and some of the other obstacles that we had first semester we weren't really able to start that friday intervention until the spring but it took off like gangbusters and we actually had students asking us this year when we were gonna get started and a couple on a friday just showed up hey or we have an intervention today so

025i think that's fantastic um quarterly we do a data dig for our language arts and math benchmarks district benchmarks and something that we started doing two years ago is as a result of those benchmark scores the math and language arts teachers say how can we use the skills that we see where kids need a little more practice in our classes that are not language arts and math in other words how can we practice this skill specifically in a social studies class or in a pe class and then those teachers created a few little activities that the non-math and language arts teachers could implement right away and that that was really successful and teachers really valued that and you know this notion of their our kids and their our test scores is embodied by that kind

026of practice um the last kind of academic thing i wanted to share with you is something we did last year where we did some targeted parent teacher conferences we just had our first round of parent-teacher conferences this year last night and it was really successful it was fun to have families in our school again even though it's a million degrees in the junior high gym lots of people came our ptso had food trucks and that was really successful but what we found is um and the model will explore again in the spring this year is that if we have targeted parent-teacher conferences where a team of teachers can come together with one family and talk about challenges that child's facing and how we might better support them as a school we feel like we're really

027getting a lot of success out of that programming the last thing that i'm super excited to talk about is our positive behavior intervention and support program or pbis that is a system based on positive behavior that's taught to students through expectations and then we're able to use um behavior as a learning tool at school so you know it's the old adage we want kids to read if we want them to do math we teach them but if we want them to follow a certain level of behavioral expectations we need to teach those too um this actually had roots in the spring of 2020 during the closure um we had a committee of teachers who came together and this this was their full-time job during fourth quarter um there were about eight of us and they

028worked eight hours a day those teachers for that whole quarter on what a positive behavior intervention and support program could look like at scholar junior high school this was before we were added to the grant program through ade and we just kind of had this sense that we couldn't start another school year with what we had in place and we needed something else so fortunately we were able to go back to school last fall and that was awesome but we also had kind of this fledgling pbis program to launch from and something that's come out of that that's wonderful is our students feel more confident i think at school because there are expectations for behavior for all areas of school and we were able to purchase posters and have those hanging up so that if

029i'm in the hallway or i'm in a classroom or i'm in the cafeteria i can refer to that poster and i know what the expectations are and i can feel confident in following those um we are really excited because a pbis program and as we're learning more and more through our participation with the grant through ade it's a focused intentional effort um to eliminate some of those punitive practices that scholar junior high school had kind of been leaning on for a number of years so we feel like we're kind of to a place where we've eliminated most of those and we're really focused on um positively rewarding student behavior positively you know helping them understand how to be a great member of a community and just today i had a couple of uh students on

030the playground during recess um were able to have some playground equipment out for students to play with you know basketballs and hula hoops and jump ropes and things like that i jump rope today too i don't have a video to share but that was um but a couple of uh our students helped clean up some of that playground equip equipment without being asked and so i pulled them over and um our positive rewards system is through an app that we purchased and so i have it on my phone and i said come on over here and let's give you some pbis points for being so respectful with our playground equipment and it's just enough um they just want to be recognized and feel good and and find their place in our school community and so

031it's been really powerful but maybe kind of an academic byproduct that we've realized um is that these um kind of expected behaviors and the way we're able to teach it to students and then our process for when maybe you need a little redirection as a student or you need to reset yourself and kind of find your focus again that has actually actually led to an increase in instructional time because students aren't out in the hall they're not spending time in the office they have a conversation with their teacher they're reset using common vocabulary and a common set of phrases and most of the time they can go right back to learning so we're really excited as we grow this program and spend some more time this year and really kind of helping to support our

032kids in that way madam president just the final note on the junior height the arizona department of education did not um give label grade labels um this year because of covet however they did they do have the matrix that they use to apply those labels based on performance on test scores and other things and and as a result of what you just heard now and their performance last year the junior high would have been would have if we were receiving labels would have received a label of an a um and i don't know when the last time that happened but i know it's been a good time so um congratulations for you i know that's been a lot of effort for you tell your staff thank you that's it that's it okay item 3.4 consideration

033to change the october board meeting madam president there is an inherent conflict perhaps on that day it's during fall break um many people won't be around at that time and so the proposal would be to move that perhaps to the first thursday i believe it is in the month can you do that can you jump yeah a motion to approve to move the october board meeting to thursday october 7th a second and they can be here again we believe so we'll have to all in favor post motion passes and then we need to remember next month change novembers write down 3.5 call to the audience all how do you pronounce your last name thank you can you state your first and last name please all crothers c-o-r-a-t-h-e-r-s i had a few things on my mind

034that that i wanted to in and i understand the the rules on the call to the public you're not allowed to answer anything and you're limited to three minutes which i don't i don't understand and maybe it can be elaborated on or there's uh something i can go read about why that there's no discussion on agenda items when they come when they come through because it seems like you just go through the agenda and there's no questions from the audience and feedback is important and there are issues that questions that i have um about certain things and it'd be it'd be nice to have an opportunity to get an answer and i don't know what the exactly the rules are because i've been i've gone to board the different board meetings before and not with

035school boards but so um and and i was going to talk about the the um which i understand and kelly went to the the asab or whatever it is and um and based on what was talked about last meeting and based on what was in the paper i had questions i understand you can't answer maybe you can answer them later but i see that mainly it's about money and in doing some research i found it and i got different answers the state the state gives so much money to schools and also i was looking at my property tax and half my property tax of 917 half of that goes to the school and and i don't know whether the board has um where we can talk where where there's public input on how is that

036money being spent and why is there so much money that go i mean and then there's a thing in here about how they want to take money away from private private i don't know whether that was discussed or not they want to take money away from from private schools and homeschooling and private and private schools and home schools seem to be due a lot more in educating the students on less money so i had i had some issues with some of the agenda that was um on the um that the association was as involved with so i just wanted to bring up those points and hopefully uh since this isn't a form that can be answered maybe is there a forum that some of some of my questions and concerns can be answered yes mrs

037b crush our business manager you could talk to her about money over here and brandi could send you the link with the political agenda for asba okay thank you yes mr housley he's always happy to answer questions sit down and visit with any of those thank you guthrie [Music] kushner well i am talking about critical race theory now you just told me that arizona doesn't do it arizona does not do critical race theory this is a dangerous dangerous dangerous thing that is coming into our schools and it is it's in the um in the valley it's happening in the valley now so if this is a a broad spectrum of nobody in arizona is doing critical race theory it's happening it is happening now um crt is being mandated by federal government and this is

038what um and this is what they say but this is what you say we're doing something on a smaller level here more community and not not have to go but federal mandates and arizona passed a law saying you're not supposed to teach critical race theory but i don't know if anybody here knows what agenda 21 and agenda 30 is but this is this is for that it's for the one new world order okay now uh for people that don't know what critical race theory is i have just four points okay critical race theory is that racism is normal and everybody knows the united states is the less racist country in the whole world if you want to experience racism go to hawaii and you'll be called to haole okay or some other countries where you

039just they're mostly one people out here we're a big melting pot and there's no reason why we should be us white people should be um taking the um the stand of the of the bad guy in in um in pioneer days and with black versus white what they're trying to do is to turn us against each other the second tenement in in critical race theory is that um you won't fight racism if you are unless you have a personal gain so in saying white people are are gonna won't fight uh racism unless they have a personal gain um it's it's anti-liberal and it's anti-american um the um it's racism is assumed it's not a conversation it's not to be debated it's tenement to treason to even debate racism and no self-criticism of racism is allowed

040okay there's nothing to look at here what they're doing is they're targeting um um social institutions retargeting sorry that's that's time okay it's time okay and i don't know if mr halsey can talk about the standards okay thank you well can i just say that you are if you are uh black you're oppressed and if you are white you are the oppressor and they have a very dim view of religion um thank you very much thank you 3.6 future agenda items anyone i have an agenda item i had actually asked for it to be placed on tonight but there wasn't enough time but i'm really glad that mr housley talked about the backpack snack i think that would be um i would love to have that on our next agenda for the board members to

041do it i thought it would be a great project for us to do to put together backpacks and maybe bring spouses or family i think you can bring uh kids over 16. and um i had given some dates in january to um brandy so maybe she could put that out to us and you can let her know what would be a good day for us to do that but i thought it might be um something fun for us to do so hopefully the board will want to do that good idea you would want to be just clarify you wanted on the agenda as a discussion item to kind of flush through something i want to make sure everybody wants to do it besides me you guys understand what we'd be doing a service project you

042go down and you package all of the food into the bags but then get home with the kids so when they when they do this can we just not show up and help or is it something we have to actually it's pretty organized it's an organized stand they have different like church groups different youth groups that will come in and do it different certain day that we families be the ones packaging all the food for them do you want this in like the work session [Music] i'm interested in doing it so i think we could just schedule it yeah i would love to thank you thank you there we go okay cool so if y'all just get the dates out to everybody brandi that would be one do you want to give me a contact

043i can get this later but if they need to contact anyone you or someone else i will let you know that thank you thank you item 4.1 approval of overnight and out-of-state travel mr housley and president members of the board mr martian is recommending the approval of six staff members to take the high school ski club the purgatory colorado february 2nd through the 4th hopefully there's some snow up there um the funding source fundraising tax credit and and student day i would ask that you would approve that if it is one that we we do pretty madam president i'll move to approve the overnight and out-of-state travel and i'll just say that i was able to go on this when i was a student at show low um and it was a phenomenal trip and

044my family was able to go to purgatory over the summer time and we had a remarkable time they have a world-class facility up there so i'm excited for our students to be able to go up and participate in that and be able to uh to experience that type of skiing and that type of lodging and stuff so a second okay any further discussion all in favor aye opposed motion passes item 4.2 approval of 2021 22 school year 3-1 goals mr housley madam president as you see there there's an outline mrs ramsey ran the lead on on that development of that and ran that committee and ran the surveys of teachers and before you you have the plan set forth um as the 301 plan i just want to note there there were some changes to

045301 in this legislative session the changes did not remove the requirement for performance-based portion of the pay what it did eliminate is the fact that it had to be 33 percent of the form of the total payout but you still have to you it says that the governing board shall adopt a 301 plan that includes that portion the performance during the budget committee prior to this 301 the budget committee on the recommendation uh they came forth from mr bill crawford he suggested that we stay at the 60 40 split and that was agreed upon during the budget committee and so that's the premise that mrs um ramsey was working on as she moved forward with the committee 301 is is meant to enhance the growth and development of our school district but also to enhance

046the growth and development of teachers specifically where it was targeted as it was put into place so that teachers could see that enhancement and growth much much like maybe a little bit different but much like career ladder that show low experience a number of years ago not much different and so you'll see components inside the plan uh this is a plan that's developed by that committee it's voted on by teachers and then voted on by you you'll see components of future growth um that they lead themselves personal growth um finding out writing the narrative for their personal growth plan and um and then meeting some other other things as you move through them that is before you mrs ramsey's here she could provide some other feedback if you have action is it usually this late

047in the year that we approve these um we have uh we usually try to get it done earlier there were some different things with the legislature ran late there are changes in the in the way that it can be administered that that piece our budget meetings were long last year and so it did go out the first time and and uh didn't get um we feel like it's important to get the teachers to vote on it as a whole and uh didn't have a majority there were some questions they had about some things and so it didn't vote so it was revisited again um by that committee and then we put out the vote so it's been a pretty lengthy didn't we approve um the gold 301 goals at a previous meeting or is this

048an updated one or we approved um the 301 payout from last year okay gotcha okay thank you mrs ramsey could you kind of talk about why there's such a low approval rate like why it's so different this year but it's only 61 67 percent of teachers that like plan but we couldn't open their responses on the graph so you want to know well it was only 67 of the staff that liked the goals what did they like about them the other i mean um well on the forum i didn't ask what they liked about the goals it was a yes or no question and then if they voted no then they were able to um write suggestions or make comments it was actually higher than that then no that was a percentage that came back

049yeah so the comments that were made are the things that maybe we can improve upon and make a better plan um a lot of the comments were concerns about technology if they were going to do video recordings of a lesson which we do have that capability we have swivel devices and ipads for each of the schools um some of the other concerns were i need to think back to it did they not want a video of themselves is that what it was or that was a big concern when we first um let's see i think it was the second time that we sent this out to vote a big concern was um with video recording um so we changed it up so that they had a choice they could either do a video recording or

050they could participate in six hours of professional development what was the difference between the first set of goals and the second set of goals and why did you make those changes like what what input did you take in that was that like delineated between the first ones that failed and the second ones that are well got a little bit more than a majority um a lot of it had to do with the the video recording i would say the majority of the comments were about um recording and then presenting it to their plc's and having pure feedback or administrator feedback for um instructional coach feedback um i think they it was a little bit coming into a personal space for a lot of them so um so we made that what what would have to

051a teacher have to accomplish in order to get all their 301 money so you want me to go through all the goals yeah okay i have them i just okay goal number one is um cfa data okay so um weekly they have common formatives and this is to track um student performance on those formative permanent quizzes and then um goal number two is i think it's on your screen [Laughter] okay um school-wide improvement and involvement which is what we have had in the past um and um part of that is plc membership and participation so 100 participation or if they are unable to make a plc meeting and they have to be physically present for at least 80 meetings then we have the schoolwide supports which was previously on 301 goals as well so this

052is um doing stuff outside of the school day such as family nights um being chaperones at dances a cab director etc so these are you know yeah off contract hours then goal number three is a professional learning um portion and 25 percent is that each teacher is going to be writing a professional learning plan and in the past we have had a page where teachers were to write down what their goals were for professional learning and i don't know if that was ever really done we didn't collect it at a district level so it would have been at a school level but this is going to kind of solidify that and um have the teachers really responsible for making a plan on how they're going to um use different learning opportunities to strengthen their their

053teaching um and then we have option number two the teachers will um or excuse me okay so that was 25 and then um we have the other 15 is option one they can either attend the six hours of webinars or off-site professional development or option two the teacher can plan a lesson with a choice record and do a self-reflection and then they can share it if they want to with their plc or they can share it with an instruction so shed with the state requirement do we have to have three goals or could i mean could we just have one goal that's like very low so that all of our teachers get their 301 money um no so let me read from um it's a ars 15 977 when it becomes law that's this is

054how it's going to read this is the senate bill that it went it said in section c a school district governing board shall vote on a performance-based compensation system that includes the following elements one school district performance in school performance two individual teacher performance three measures of academic progress towards the academic standards adopted by the state board of education or other measures of academic progress five dropout or graduation rates six attendance rates seven ratings of school quality by parents those would be surveys eight is ratings of school quality by students again surveys nine the input of teachers and administrators and approval of the performance-based compensation system based on an affirmative vote of at least seventy percent eligible so then it goes on and it'll it'll continue to read there so those are some of the

055components that it would need to include it doesn't need all of those components but it should have components of those number 10 was approval by 70 of teachers and we only had 67 percent approve this so did we not meet that if we pass this um no we're close it doesn't have to meet all of them i'm a little um disappointed to see that you know there's a third of our teachers who aren't happy with it clearly so i'm just wondering if this is something that maybe we need to collaborate a little bit more with our teachers and maybe come up with a plan do you feel like this is the best that we can get or do you think there's some improvement that can be made to maybe make you know at least 10

056percent more can i speak to something mrs ramsey and this is typical of a lot of committees i know we've been asked to collaborate quite a bit um when we first started the budget committee there was attendance as as we met second time third time it became to where we had five at the end mrs ramsey put out an invitation to come and participate in the classroom site fund the 301 plan committee and as you see it ended up with five individuals um that is pretty typical for the response that we get for committee work um my my concern is this i um the plan has to there has to be something that is performed this the basis of this plan is all around their personal growth and development um i i find out what

057what i feel like my deficiency is i do research on it i write a plan to improve and i earn my money it's all about me um i think it those who put their time and effort into this that did a pretty good job of trying to make it about that teacher as an individual for their personal individual growth i'm not sure why the 67 reflected that way but i i do feel like the attention to the plan to allow a teacher to take an opportunity for personal reflection to personal improve and have a hundred percent control of that and not worry about well it's supposed to be this and john didn't show up and he didn't do his portion now i'm affected by it but it's 100 in their control i thought that that

058was pretty well thought out i don't know how how much more exploration into that component can be done and outside of that first part the rest of the goals look exactly like they did last year and the year before and the year before so i don't that's the only component that's different so i don't know so you feel like this is the best fun that we can come up with i feel like it's a pretty pretty solid plan if i'm looking to accomplish individual reflection individual growth yeah okay thank you mrs ramsey quick question on your uh your questions about yeah are you in favor of the proposed goals you got 73 responses how many people were eligible to respond it was all teachers can they see that yeah all teachers how many teachers so

059how many people that include they have approximately 130 so let's take the low in 135. so 135 people could respond to this and only 73 then is that one that's what i see it's right here on the little okay so what's the percentage who's good at math don't look at the attorney room i get percentage on my phone a bunch of math teachers in the background what do you say 90 73 it says 73. 73. did some people respect responsibility so 73 what's the math there's no money how much 54 so 54 of people responded to this and 67 of them were in favor of it i i and i made it easy i put it in an email just curious on this 301 committee i think you've done a great job any other questions

060for jamie no i just want one little clarification and i had asked this question earlier and it sounds like i just for clarification this doesn't require any additional assessment of the kids that they're not already getting correct this is not assessing the students right so it's all about teachers so jamie why why do you think there was such a low response rate for the budget committee and for this the only 54 return on this i don't know maybe they don't want to be on a committee with me i'll take it personal i'm just wondering like why what and even the but the people who got the email it just like they didn't it seems like there's a lot of apathy everybody's busy probably asking me a lot of things going on and you know this

061would add another thing to their plate and so in the survey though that you sent out all did you just send are you in favor of 2021 21 22 301 goals and it was that was the goals clearly articulated in that email or attached to the email oh really yeah they needed to do one more step open an attachment click on a yes or no yeah they had to read the goals and reflect on them and think about whether or not they like that which would take a few minutes and if they didn't want to do it then their opinion doesn't get counted for the survey and like mr halsey said we started this in may and then we had to go back to the drawing board and by the time we were able to

062get back together summer had already hit so with the first draft he said it was too low the first time it was lower 30 so this is much better than that yeah yeah let me start on it earlier this year or do you have to wait until late in the year well like you said there were several factors that came into play i would much rather do this before summer hits right we don't always anticipate the legislature running till may right usually they like to run out in april exactly so so mr housley what happens if we if we deny this tonight and we said what would be the next what would happen after that if this was denied here's here's the problem with not a proofing is there is a component in here of

063a thousand dollars that a teacher has a chance to earn by december in in the plan they have to accomplish that before thanksgiving right now that's simply writing a narrative about where they want to improve if we don't approve this plan and push it off till next month you just given them a month less time to do we we need it in the principals have to declare that they've met that standard before they leave to thanksgiving so that we can put it in payroll so we can process the payroll so they could have it the pay period prior to going to christmas so that's working backwards from when that payout would be in december that's why that's why it's important so we we could we could send jamie back to the drawing um but we're

064talking at least october before that before you again um considering there's not any other obstacles and so then it really narrows it down they're on fall break in there in october so we're really looking at five six weeks to five weeks to accomplish anything that's going to be required are you sorry i'm just going through the belt are you thinking of making changes to the goals again or do you just want a better vote yeah i that's why i guess i for me personally i don't know the rest of the board i just kind of remind their prop 301 money is usually a very um it's a it's a very important component of our compensation plan to our teachers and so for there not to have been um much not not much participation but a

06540 of response to the survey and then in that there's only 63 who voted in favor of it it just causes me pause but then it's kind of at the same time i'm sitting or 67 excuse me i'm just i don't i don't have the information as to why there was that such a low rate and so and i mean is this a completely obtainable by our teachers i mean is there i don't you know what i mean like i don't want to set a bar too high since i've been here i've seen very very few teachers get knocked even portions of it and it's just because lack of attention sorry every every teacher hits the goals maybe one or two misses it 10 15 points nothing but that's like i said between one and

066three teachers that's a very low president of anyone that doesn't well and i i mean i'm not a teacher so i mean the goals we're setting are they're not so arduous that they're not obtainable right the very first thing that they have to do to the very first piece of or compensation um is that professional learning each teacher will write a professional learning plan by december 1st an outline for the professional learning plan will be provided we have that outline as soon as you approve this it'll be distributed via email to every teacher but there's a framework to draft that it's a very short narrative they could accomplish that tomorrow evening if they already identified where they wanted to be so is it accomplishable yeah it's not something that's going to take forever to do

067um and you know or option two you know then you go down and there's two options option one do i wanna according to my plan do i wanna take some personal or professional learning opportunities do i wanna watch a webinar and do i i've got some things that are out there that are pretty good or teacher will plan a lesson of their choice the lesson will be recorded using a device such as the swivel and ipad teacher will watch it and reflect on it that doesn't even have to happen before december that by the end of the year yeah and that can be done personally like jamie said there's no i don't have to have stacy with me to have her critique it i just have to so mr housely if we had like a

068principal who was um you know somebody develops this uh outline for professional learning do they have to like approve it and say yeah you're deficient in that area you should work on that or do they just have to present it and then it's like kind of rubber stamps is that how that's going to work or this is all personal um i think it's helpful to visit with my my supervisor about how i want to improve yeah the plan doesn't require it the plan requires that i sit down and reflect personally and submit something so that they can they can verify that that actually happened the option to record a lesson it just crossed my mind as we were talking but this is something similar that if i was going to go get national board certified

069i'd be recording less um quite a few of them not just one and i would be reflecting on those lessons and so it is a component that's pretty generally accepted and we're not asking them to do 10 lessons and share them share them with colleagues all around wherever it's it's one reflect on their personal growth i think rousey correct me if i'm wrong but these goals are set by the state we can choose the ones that we want to work on and suit them to ourselves the criteria of 301 is set by within statute right and we we set this plan according to those that we feel like or will be most important we don't we don't have the option of saying uh show up one day to work and you get all your 301

070money there are requirements set by the state right and we have to adhere to right it says that there has to be a performance piece in there you can say you could go in and say we're we're going to do a satisfaction survey with students in base base it all on that satisfaction survey that's what it said you could do it on parents i'm not sure that i've never seen that come up so it's not very popular yeah i'm sure our teachers don't want to have their three-on-one money tied to their whether or not it's a popularity contest or not right rightfully so yeah we like surveys it is a club i just don't yeah well i have a question is it possible i mean is there members of the budget committee who are teachers

071who could come up and kind of attest like yeah this is attainable this is something we can do or they feel one committee anyone here that the fact that it's relatively the same as what we've always or what we've done for a few years and they're all but two or three are attaining it yeah i just want to know why people aren't responding like anybody want to be the sacrificial lamb who comes up who pushed delete who pushed him back there she raised her hand committee were you asking for 301 committee or teachers in general teacher or 301 or both whatever is there anybody here that was on the committee yeah jolan lobaton was on the committee and chris jones was on [Music] you have to state your name and your address and your social

072security no my name is shawna brown but i am a teacher at nicholas homestead elementary and i feel like i never knew what this whole plan was i was never told by anyone what this plan was i asked what a learning plan was and i was told well you can do option one or two but now i'm i'm as of today i'm under the understanding that there is maybe a template or form that we have to fill out because i said i don't want to vote for a learning plan if it's a 10-page report and so you know i voted no because i just wanted some more information i felt like i was i was not informed of all of these goals so that's thank you and i didn't know i had no idea what

073the state no one had said anything about what the state requirements were i had no idea what those were i just feel like i'm totally out of the loop on this so i did vote now do you feel like your supervisor should get that information to you or that you find out yourself find out myself how would i find out why i started asking people at that were on the committee and i was told something a little bit different of how this was even presented to the committee i guess my question is i was trying to find out should we do when this 301 info comes in from the state should we get that to every teacher so that they have that or is that something that you get yourself am i making sense yeah

074i think someone needs to let us know what it is might be a thought is that info out to everybody that that is the purpose of a committee is to help disperse the information so that the committee members serving can go back and and and share their thoughts and insights that they they took from because they're going to bring a teacher perspective into that and a little bit of an understanding so um did we have someone you're a whipple no neglect nicholas sorry did we have someone from nicholas on the committee did we have someone from nicholas on the committee so so maybe when they didn't show up to the meeting were they given an email this is what happened at the meeting please share this with your teachers that i don't know if that

075was done that could be very helpful i guess i just feel like i was totally blindsided on this and i think mrs ramsey said that the all the data like the feet that we just showed that were attached to that email did you not see the attachment before so i got but i just rarely i just barely got this agenda request and as i'm looking at this agenda quest request i'm like the budget committee had stated that goals should continue to be made even without the state requirement so i'm like who said that that the goals should continue in that committee and it wasn't shared with us i mean we had no input like maybe on that from the committee yeah i was on the committee yes i would i mean i would i would

076think that if you're on a committee you should be responsible to come back and share it with the teachers and maybe who's ever ahead of that committee should maybe let the people know because what if my person was sick and had to go to the doctor's office and and couldn't go to the meeting so they wouldn't know so i i don't know exactly what happened but i just feel it's a it was a communication problem so can i ask when did the survey go out what when did the survey go well um it was several weeks ago this one did several weeks ago yeah that we voted on yes and then when we talked amongst each other i said what is a learning plan and i was asking the teachers and they didn't know but

077yet some of them still voted okay so but i just feel like people didn't really know what they were voting for either miss ramsey when you sent that out it had the attachments on it so that they can look at it and read it and no there was nothing for the learning plan because yeah the goals were attached but i never got the answer what is this learning plan is it a five-page report what do you want me to do with that and so that's why i voted no because i felt i didn't know what that learning plan was thank you i need some more specifics will there be a training on the learning plan are they just on their own to figure it out it's really simple enough that if we had to do

078training i'm concerned okay i'm sorry hi um jolin louboutin from the high school so like every time we meet or every time i receive an email from miss jamie um i would go to the meeting and then after that i needed to consult with my um administrator i always talked to mr merchant about you know like what is our goal what is our goal what is our goal because um like for example the goal number one the um student achievement so it's like all the 301 of the other teachers who are non-math and non-ela their 301 money will depend on the performance of the math teachers and the ela teachers so we have an alternative plan of tracking our performance or our growth so what we did um was our friday mastery so that is

079like our main goal is to increase student performance and so like um friday perform a friday mastery would be like for students who are struggling so they're there or we teach and then retake to improve their scores after the reteach so that's what we're doing at the high school and you can see how that what slobotan just said you can see how that's reflected in in the goal they identified that dla and math it's easy to do a cfa but what about the non-ela well yes non-ela and math and kindergarten teachers may use an alternative data tracking and that's where you just heard that she had developed that um with their assignments yes thank you thank you thank you you guys have any more discussion i'll entertain a motion for approval of the 301 goals

080for the 21 22 school year i'll emotionally approve we'll second the motion all in favor okay opposed motion passes item 5.1 approval of resignations retirements and terminations supposedly can i real quick qualify why i voted i think we were allowed to do that is that appropriate i'm just sorry bran 7 433 you could you should have spoke up okay i'm just kidding go ahead go ahead i i'm just worried that our i i look at this statue and i worry that we're not going to pass uh statutory mustard because i believe that um approval of the performance-based compensation system based on an affirmative vote of at least 70 percent of the teachers eligible to participate in the performance i don't know that we met that requirement so that's why i voted i just want that

081to be on the record 5.1 approval of resignations retirements and termination madam president members of the board we have a number of individuals before you this evening uh resignations polly mcgee aaron troutman jeff houston greg clark helen um olsen and jenny freeze for your consideration this evening those red and let me both the other other ones the other rest of them are letters there i'll move to approve the resignation retirements and terminations outlined in 5.1 second all in favor post motion passes item 5.2 approval of new hires renewals and transfers uh for your approval this evening new hires lauren uh rerich a food service worker um uh andrea um my lips aren't working um riley stahl uh whipple rancher professional one mia ordin um danny whipple rancher professional two jessica cole with ranch paraprofessional one

082carlos valenzuela high school custodian tracy lewis a high school talent classroom aide and librarian brandon rivera junior high para one robert uh romanelli tower uh bus trip driver joshua gazelle six-hour bus trip driver interim position gingerbread bishop as the interim food service director and then student teaching abigail um carnahan at the high school i'll move to approve the new hires renewals and transfers second on favor post motion passes item 5.3 approval of substitute we are super excited almost uh certified nancy lay amber bayless julie plum anna likens on the classified side amanda hossler uh ravani um bowens abigail uh carnahan and zach christensen for your approval to see a motion to approve that's presented well second on favor post motion passes item 5.4 approval of stipends volunteers and event workers mr housing madam president members

083of the board there are a number of those outlined i will not read those but they are available on the board someone would like to look at those but i do bring them for your approval this evening when we pull one of those names off i see that uh there's an under the girls soccer named john larson we need to talk heavily about that individual well they misspelled my last names oh did they exactly who that is anyways yeah we need to i think there's a guy down famously run a thorough background on that individual i i agree completely i'll vote now on that i'll move to approve the uh stipends as outlined stipends volunteers and event workers a second all in favor aye opposed washington passes item 5.5 approval of contract divisions mr helsing

084there is a need at this time to move mary johnson from 37 and a half to 39.5 hours per week paid on a regular hourly rate uh this is paid from our idea basic grant dollars that's our special needs program program dollar will should we approve second favor okay post motion passes item 6.1 second reading of an approval of policy advisory 680 through 7-eleven mr houston i hope the the document that i put out a few weeks ago is helpful to at least organize them but this is our second reading on on these policies um i i hope we capture these we will we're doing it tonight we'll capture these the last time we did a policy manual update there was an advisory just like this very lengthy and it didn't get captured when they

085published it online and so that was one of the big deficiencies when we went through our policy review so we're we're excited to have these for your approval this evening promotion to approve for second reading and approval of policy advisories 680 through 7-eleven second all in favor post motion passes item 7.1 discussions of stipends mr hosley madam president will um give this to mrs b croft to start us off um so i would just like to say i know we've had several this will be the fifth board meeting that we've discussed the stipends um i would just like to say at the beginning of the year um i met with mr marchant i know the majority of the stipends uh that are being i guess contested or um not felt well about um we've discussed

086the stipend since the beginning of the year the need for the district to revise put them in order um i know it's not a popular thing i know people were upset um as being the person responsible for the financial management of the district i felt it very important i even had people tell me don't do it don't talk about the stipends is part of my responsibility is to broach this very unpopular very controversial come to some people's subjects in doing that i know mr marcha and his team spent an inordinate amount of time discussing them with staff i know we had several board members called custom as well um i talked with several people um so the stipends that uh were made there were revisions to uh virtually every stipend in the district that goes

087for bannon choir student council department chairs nhs academic sessions um prep hours all of them were taught we do need this it doesn't stop here the board should be considering the stipends every year i don't know why they weren't considered um and things i think have kind of passed um well that's grandfathered in we don't ever look at that again there's no language in the stipend contract that indicates that um and so i feel like what was the fourth i tried to put as much information and as much thought um to be fair and to be equitable to every employee um not just certain employees um no disrespect to those people that did receive well everyone received a production but i feel that every every stipend was considered and thought and discussed and as a

088district as a board we do have to move in the direction of financial responsibility um our stipends i mean we were close to total site with more than a half a million dollars so it's something that needs to be looked at every year if there's changes if there's revisions that's our due diligence we have to do it even though it's unpleasant and i'm i apologize it's not a personal thing it's just it's a business thing we have to move in line with we had over a five percent reduction in students last year we didn't take anything you know what i'm saying there was nothing subtracted out of the body we tried to cover all our bases so we have to be constantly we should be discussing them every year as a good business practice but

089i do apologize that they weren't discussed in the previous five six years i don't i don't know why um but i do feel that was very important for me to discuss them and it would mr marchant discuss them at length with his staff members i know uh the elementaries and the other schools discuss their desire for um very very small scale each of those schools now have department chair or leader stipend at the beginning of the year right there in their front they're daily pay so if you're getting a prep hours type and you will see it on each and every text there's a portion um built out over all of your if you're a coach it's just too hit so when teachers signed their contracts last spring they thought they were getting the their

090stipends right because it wasn't until the end of july the stipends were not approved so that would not assumption though have any questions well i i am the one who asked um for this to be put on the work session and i actually thought this was going to be an action item but it doesn't look like that it is my concern was um i probably didn't look at this as like an equalized type um look-see rather i looked at it as a way to save money and um so i know that some board members thought it was one way and i thought it was another way and um so and i voted yes for that i believe at the july meeting and probably since then have kicked myself a little bit for doing that um

091felt like i probably um should have a little more thought never into trying to decide what my intentions were with this um i feel bad that there are some teachers um specifically in the math department that have been decreased by quite a bit of money and yet we you know we have an influx of over 300 students this year i don't know how many of them are at the high school but i know that it's put pressure on them and i know that it puts some pressure on our sped department i know that we're low in numbers um as far as staff and not being able to feel some of those positions and so i struggle with um are we devaluing you know some of our positions and um so that is one of my

092biggest concerns i guess for me it was um and i voted no against it so i think most people are know that so my my i guess my question is mr croft is we've never decreased these since you've been here or since i've been on the board or since mr housley's been the superintendent i don't know john he's probably been the most tenured member of the board we've never decreased these really right is that a true statement i've never seen him look that in any way no but it is so so i guess then was there anything given i know that we're we can't just say well the the nature of a stipend is that they're not guaranteed every year right but we didn't we didn't do anything as a district to notify them absolutely

093we did we did the very beginning of the year i met with mr margin said we are going to look at stipend it wasn't like oh my gosh we got to cut that was never the goal in some cases in this bed department we actually increase what the district is going to pay to now offer the self-contained at whipple and so that's i i disagree it was talked about but so teachers who are getting their contract when where did when did contracts go out this year um like chad mentioned um the state budget when did they finish up may yeah it was a late legislation late it was a very awful year um i understand that um but like i said um and kind of pointing to what the gentleman said earlier that we can't

094rubber stamp i feel too long and are just we just rubber down we need to take a hard look why is the stipend in place is it necessary do we need to renew it is it just part blank we just say yes yeah and i'd like to remind the board that we've reached the subject in november of last year that's when we started and we brought very a a consideration before the board for reductions at that and the board decided to table it until um later on where we could have more discussion that discussion began in february when we started our budget discussion um it didn't maybe it didn't start on a global scale but it did start earlier than that and it asked your question of when have we even looked at these before

095i've i've breached it the last three administrative retreat summer retreats that i've had because of the the amount of stipends that were we're offering i would i would be much more and i i set it in the work session i'll say it again i am much more in favor philosophically of removing all types and putting it back into base salary but you have to do something first there's an initial and it hurt regardless of the way you do it it's going to hurt and that's where the initial year when you do make those decisions i'm wondering did we do enough to notify our teachers that this was the first year we're doing it and so it sounds to me like from the feedback we're getting from the teachers that we didn't do enough to articulate

096to them that this was going to be the year that the stipends were going to be on the chopping block and that they were going to be you know like there was some discussions and i'll admit there were discussions about looking at them evaluating but i don't know that there was enough of a of an of for knowledge to say hey this is the year stipends will be cut by the board or will be cut by administration and you need to plan accordingly right like if there's discussions that initially start and they're kind of i mean even us we weren't even voting on i mean mr marchant had a proposal the speaker of the business office had a proposal they were they were competing proposals in the middle of the summer time and so i

097don't know that that notification the first year that you're going to make those that we did a good enough job to notify so that our teachers could plan accordingly that's just my personal opinion and that's what i i feel like and i because i agree with what mr house is saying that there is a time and stipends are not you know they're not the uh they're not guaranteed seems like they're the sacred cow that nobody wants to you know sacrifice at the district all of that is true and i'll readily agree with everything you've said my own personal belief is i think that and and i don't know that the the blame lies on anybody right like the legislature they that was one of the longest legislative sessions in the in my history my day

098job i have to keep up on the legislature and make sure you know when they break because a lot of the laws that i recommend to my clients they go into effect at certain dates and september 29th is the date that they're going into effect which is one of the last dates i can remember and i've been advising my client for almost 10 years now so i don't know that the blame lies you know specifically anywhere i just personally think that we that that poor knowledge would have been advantageous to those people who are directly affected i would like to add that we also had very additional lengthy lengthy considerations and discussion on um the retention stipend uh the board was very generous and voted above and beyond what was initially presented so every person

099that got a reduction to um the stipends that i mentioned are going to actually see an increase in pay uh with the addition of the retention statements so and then the attendance stipends um teachers are part of the 301 this year but the attendance stipends were increased as well so it's not we were cognizant of that and i think we addressed it the board was very gracious in the amounts that they gave um so i think that um no one's actually going to see a dollar for dollar i'd just like to put out there a little bit about why i voted for the stipends and what my understanding of what we were trying to do was so there's i feel like i've said that every single time we brought up stipends it's always about are

100we trying to save money and that was never my understanding of the goal um and maybe that became and by my personal view maybe too much of the point because my understanding of why it was an important thing to do is that we had a lot of stipends all concentrated in one area of the district and it wasn't fair to a lot of other teachers who are also putting an effort and it needed to be looked at and figured out how we can make sure we are compensating everyone who deserves to be compensated um and it's always something where well everyone has something that they're doing that is great and so i wish we could just double everyone's salary and obviously we cannot do something like that because it's not um appropriate and we don't

101have the funds for that but my understanding was that in order for us to be able to get the elementary levels uh schools to be able to have their leadership have a stipend as well it had to be moved around a little we didn't just magically get more money to be able to start um compensating other people who also deserve compensation we had to kind of try and even it out a little bit so it certainly wasn't when i voted for the stipends it wasn't this type of change it wasn't because i thought anyone was doing a bad job or was getting paid too much or shouldn't be getting what they were getting it was that there's other people who also should be receiving some sort of additional assistance that worked and where's that money

102going to become from so for me it was really about trying to have some fairness and equity across all of the the teachers in the district and it's it's always hard when one person has to lose something but it's not like we were just throwing that money out the window we were trying to make it more balanced across the district so i just kind of want to put that out there again that that was my personal uh motivation for supporting um the stipends being looked at um now if there's some things that we want that we think it didn't quite go right this time and we want to make little changes if that's what the board would like to do i'm in favor of of doing that if that's what everyone wants to do i'm

103not going to fight against that anything john no well the retention stipends i guess i personally looked at them as a thank you not something that would be evening out or taking something away so when we talked about those last year it was like you know we had a really rotten year and a half of it and you guys have stuck with us through it and so in my mind that should have been separated solely from their their other income um i have an issue with us making any major decisions on the budget coming into the school year unless it's absolutely necessary and i don't think that was respectful of anyone in the middle of the summer to decide to take away income and i appreciate all the work mr merchant did and aligning it

104and how you did your system and everything and makes it a lot easier in in fairness i i i will go back and look but i believe that mrs b november absolutely stated that it would need to be um very clearly and that we would revisit it and that's exactly the so i i i appreciate what you said mr clark and i'm trying to figure out if how much more legwork because the work that she and mr merchant put into this i think was again and it took i mean just the work that the board and i did on just flushing through the the budget this year there was a lot of work and a lot of time put in but uh several meetings just on the budget end and talking about just want to

105make sure that that effort that was there isn't just set aside as we didn't do enough i think a lot was done and perhaps even even enough in in some cases it doesn't make a hard decision easier no matter how much you um and so the the fact is i think there was some consideration on both hints do you take it all the way away do you not take it away um there was no discussion in the years when we had a twenty percent increase in the base and the stipends increased that it wasn't considered even as a budgetary issue but that's that's significant when you're talking about 40 000 worth of stipends increasing 20 um but there wasn't a conversation about that that just kind of happened and we moved we move forward having

106serious reflection about it i think is important and here's the factor that i want to make sure that everyone considers prop 208 is in litigation problem 208 is set to create one billion dollars of revenue for education there's a flat tax that the governor proposed and it's set to reduce the general budget by a billion dollars education is 48 of the general budget i don't have to be a match genius to figure out that that is a reduction to educational spending significant if there's a significant reduction in educational spending if we don't do things today to prepare three years from now we're going to have an even harder discussion around people losing jobs around cutting people and having larger class sizes it's been something since i've been here and i've applauded your efforts to try

107to keep class sizes reasonable we we haven't seen many class sizes around 35 like some of the districts around we've we've been trying to keep them reasonable we've rolled up our sleeves and gone to work i don't want to be in a position two three years from now when we're looking back and saying man this decision is much harder i i appreciate the magnitude of the decision i appreciate the magnitude of the thought and consideration that all of you have given and it's not an easy decision but i do believe that something has to be done in order to address our our situation in accordance to what may happen um because you you have a governor with a tax proposal and you have a an initiative voted by the people and they're in conflict direct

108and so that's just my two two cents whatever it's worth but i thought it was worth at least sharing full consideration you mean to tell me we have a legislature and a governor who doesn't value education and they don't adequately fund it [Music] i'm going to die of a heart attack of shock right now mr housely because of that that's the fact that is the first time i've heard that we live in arizona and the legislature doesn't value education well i never thought about it discuss it any further i guess i'm confused about what where we are with that and what our next i mean you want to keep it as it is or you want to change it i guess i don't know is this just a discussion this is just a discussion and

109it's a discussion because it wasn't requested to be a something to vote on if you asked us to bring back what our proposal is it's what we approve and so we didn't we don't have any other direction outside of that so if we have other direction to go and and move forward and look but we didn't have any any further direction we don't have any further direction and so a discussion is what it was for this budget year i mean we did hit go it was passed by the board that changes were made they were instituted additional stipends were offered i'm not sure how i would then rescind those that would be terrible um but some additional ones are already on the horizon npc cut their dual enrollment stipends we have to pick them up

110we weren't planning on that uh there were additional stipends that went out for the the athletic director and that um that program we have additional prep hour that was picked up because the influx of students um we've hired an additional custodian at the high school like budget wise like the money it has been is reallocated and spent for this budget year like the talks and we should have discussions and talks um every year on what the stipends are going for and again for the information of the board and the public um those budget discussions will begin as outlined in the budgetary that i shared with you last week so november to may is when we would begin our beginning and end our budget discussions for the next year let me ask the math teachers my

111questions were the stipends that were presented to you in may the same ones that were approved in july nothing the last week of school we were all dating because i will read from this type of contract itself number paragraph three line two monies allocated for the michelin stipend may be reallocated increase decrease or eliminated in future years at the discretion of the governing board it's unfortunate that in our district the message has been given [Music] that they're forever and we don't look at them we don't um do any of those things but that's that's not what the contract itself so if we went back and said let's reset to last year's amounts what how problematic would that be for the for everything you're talking just the math no i'm yeah i'm talking for i mean

112the cost savings that i think we that we saved from the the stipend reductions was around 30 000. and that's what i'm saying is that's like what would the total amount be you would eliminate 15 siphons that were created no i'm saying what would the if we went back and reallocated the 33 000 and then what would it be with the amounts that were the the new stipends that we were we have created like what would be the net loss on that i don't have data okay but on the surface just the one the one that sticks out the most is we would have to um seriously consider the financial impact on right now we reallocated some of that for elementary team lead yeah that's what i'm saying is so if we reallocated that but

113then we went back in like let's say we take the the amount that was allocated to the elementary team leads we leave that the way that it was and then we say i mean the idea of a stipend right is that we can give or take away at any point so if we decided to give at this point in the year we can do that that's completely within our authority so if we said well what would it take for us to give back the stipends that was it made in good faith it sounds like in may and how much would that cost us as a district and then we give proper notification now to say i don't know what it is october november december some point you know this is all hypothetical we are we're

114doing completely away with stipends next year we're going to figure out how to make that part of base pay and this is what it's going to be but we're giving you all notice right now stipends and show unified school district are done at the direction of mr housley who has philosophically said he does not want stipends and we are moving it towards base pay and we give you enough notice that if you want to go out and find greener pastures in march or april how much would that cost us to do that because i'm assuming that's within our authority right i'm not saying i don't want to hear we don't have the money i just want to understand how much would that cost us because then the five of us can make that decision if

115that's something we would want to do that's something that we don't we weren't prepared to give you that answer okay so is that something you want to have because because i feel like i didn't vote for this so i'll just tell you guys all where i'm at i voted against it so i feel like it's kind of it's it's the the the squeaky wheel gets the grease i don't want to kick a dead horse i don't want it to be sour grapes it would my vote would stay the same if it was brought before me it would have to be somebody of the others who voted for it would have to change their vote to go against what we've already approved so if that's not something that you're going to entertain i don't want to

116waste vanessa's time i don't want to waste mr housely's time let's just say this is a dead issue and we'll move forward because my votes hasn't changed and i don't know that it would have right so it's somebody else on the panel if they want to make a decision and they want to alter their decision it has to come from them not from the squeaky world well the fact that i asked for this steven be placed on the agenda um shows that i too would like to revisit this issue so and i know it's more work for you vanessa but i think you actually had some numbers for us a few budget discussions ago that if we were to remain the same and add with the addition of the stipends that we did add which

117i do fully support um how much it would cost the district i don't know if this is something that we could use esther monies to help us get through these next few months and then us like brent just said put everybody on notice that stipends may be going away but it gives them several months to um prepare for that so that is something that we may want to look at and i would love to see it go towards the base because it just improves salaries that much more i think that you know in their base employment and would hopefully attract new staff members in the future so that is something i would like to do as well bring that back in october um i would like to have some specific direction because i can't swim

118upstream with no direction okay do you want me to give the direction madam president or do you want kelly because she asked for it would you like me to give it yes okay what i'm asking then is that we have on a budgeted item excuse me and a an agenda an agenda item that is actionable that would also include discussion of the cost of making the stipends towards staff members who received stipends either last year what the stipends were previous year as as well as including in keeping the stipends that we've already improved and what that financial impact would be to the district where that money would come from if we have it available if we have it in gen general operations m o or whether it would qualify for erisa money or any of

119those types of funding mechanisms if it's available somewhere just to get us through this current year and figure out if what the amount is and if it's available somewhere in our budget to make that you may come back and say this is how much it costs and we don't have it there's absolutely nowhere we have it that's we'd have to deal with that or you may come back and say yeah we can use erisa money or we can't or whatever that's what i would pref would ask is that clear enough direction mr halsey i'm gonna have brandi read that back to you make sure she captures that i'm recording everything i'm saying i would like to add just out of uh the best interest of the district which is what i'm looking to do um

120in this stipend contract as it reads specifically um and i think we're referring to the math diagrams which were the most loss of money um specifically when it was instituted or initiated or whatever was supposed to be for one year they agreed not to hire a pe teacher um the previous administrator wanted that money kicked out through the map as a stipend uh activity it was for zero hour uh re-team um it has transformed and kind of morphed into this it's a recruitment and a retention which is in contradiction with what is actually rewarded it because it reads the stipend shall be considered to be the performance of new and additional duties by the employees thus constituting new consideration and shall not be considered to be the performance of pre-existing duties so the when it

121was first implemented now here we are six years later that's not the premise that it's being carried out um and we're bordering if not fully in um guilty of that i mean that's gifting public funds no it's not have you ever heard of a term called promissory estoppel where you rely upon a promise that's in contract law where an individual comes to rely upon a promise and then they're at they take action that is relying upon that promise and so while we use a contract for what's been well over a decade is what i'm hearing at least i'm serious correct me if i'm wrong we've used a form but we've kind of like well we're not really using that form everybody kind of knows that or that the stipends have kind of morphed into some

122level of like a base pay and we're treating it as such and then in the years that the year that we decide not to do it some of our teachers have indicated that they were not given appropriate notice and that they made a good faith reliance upon the promise that was made to them so that is what i'm thinking of i know that what the contract says but also in that contract it says that we have the ability to take away or we also have the ability to give and so what i would think is that at this point if we identify how much it would cost us and if we identify how much this money where it would come from the board completely within their discretionary powers as the budgetary uh body for this

123you know this political subdivision of the state of arizona has that within their authority to say we are going to issue these stipends in the month of october for this amount and we can have you sign a brand new contract that says exactly what that is and that we decided to give that in october through may and that does not violate the gift clause of arizona's constitution i'm i'm i i'm pretty sure i'm the one person in this room who has the experience to talk on that aspect of the gift class okay i was hired to be the financial steward of the district if we want to represent and we'll proceed i don't think it's a rubber stamp i think it's a we're actually looking at and seeing where this could be and we're looking

124to see how much it'll cost the district and we're seeing if those funds are available so it's not there's no rubber stamp i'm not i don't think anybody's in this meeting has said bring this back so we can overstamp it so i think that that uh it's been rubber stamp for six years and we i don't think that rubber stamping is an appropriate use of that term we'll have brandy read back what you you said restated um so basically what i have is keep all new stipends in place um a little more clarity on this give back all monies to the stipends that were cut to specific departments or to all what what would it cost the sholo unified district i have that to pay the stipends that were in place at the end of

125last calendar year yep i have that down too where can this money come from um can we take it from else elsewhere and we also need to put out more timely communication as what the board will do in i think with everything with the budget there should be things brought up to us at every meeting just you know we talked about it once in november and then it came up again in may we didn't talk about it again in any meetings well for the previous six years i've watched a business manager bring up nothing so it's a little unfair too i'm not saying anything against you vanessa i'm saying we need to have more conversations that's interesting we've had um pretty lengthy discussions this year about every aspect five five meetings in april um there's

126a lot of things that have been discussed we had meetings about the previous meeting about the budget we've had more budget meetings we did yeah i mean we're very transparent budget meetings oh but i will say this though i mean we have teachers frustrating to sit and say that we didn't have these discussions it's frustrating to give uh our admin leadership the directive to look at the budget and tighten the belt strap and all of the other things that they were asked to do and then when they do it and you say okay i'm happy with that and then all of a sudden we're not happy with that that's going to be incredibly frustrating to be asked to do something and then when you do it to be asked to do the opposite and then

127be asked to do it again i i'm not sure we all understand what we're doing to our people and constantly asking them back and forth we we ask them to do something they do it we approve it and then somebody's not happy or somebodies aren't happy and then we go back now we want to go back to where we were i hope you understand how incredibly frustrating that's got to be for our people and we should stop it there's one thing a common thread that i've noticed throughout this whole meeting and it comes down to one thing with this lack of communication and that's just i'm gonna just leave it at that i believe communication is key and all things and um so i i think that's something we need to work on thank you

128bye one say this too i mean i i i don't feel like i'm and i hope it's not coming across as an attack on you like when i started this conversation with there have been mistakes nobody's really responsible for that the budget came out very late at the legislature you're under incredible pressure to get that through we have teachers who say they made a good faith reliance upon the uh you know that the stipends would have been there we didn't vote on them in july like i mean if if if you want blaine to go around blame me i don't freaking care like seriously like it's brent clark he screwed up he made the problem there we satisfied the blame game we're done with it now now let's move forward and let's find solutions to

129figure out why why do they feel like they there was a you know a lack of communication or that they made a good faith reliance on that like let's solve that problem instead of worrying about who gets blamed right like let's blame the legislature like let's blame the state of maricopa it's easy to blame the faceless nameless legislatures who are incumbent right like that's that's fine but let's let's now solve the problem that we have and the problem is we have some teachers who feel like they weren't given the information in an adequate time so the resolution that i feel like i articulated on behalf of kelly because she asked that it came forward was we need more information we've requested that information we need an actionable item in order for us to do that

130in next month's board meeting it may not come to fruition like the teachers are possibly hoping we probably don't have the money but if we do we can possibly look at that as a problem-solving opportunity instead of like like playing the blame game it just it's it's not going to be effective and it's not going to help us accomplish the goals that we're trying to do and then i think that the goals ultimately though is a policy where we don't utilize stipends and rubber stamps as you've mentioned multiple times that we you know as a board should not rubber stamp stipends if we have to create a bridge to get us from here to there and in the process make sure that our staff members are happy with that and then we give them adequate

131notice i don't know why that's a problem and i for one don't have a problem with that throughout before us multiple times if we have to deal with that issue right like i'm okay with spending my time trying to solve problems for the district so that we have adequate teachers who want to teach math and science because you know how difficult it is to find math and science teachers so if we have to come back to this discussion a few times then let's go ahead and do that but let's stop the blame game and let's start the problem solving aspect of that and i believe i've given mrs gray enough information so that we can start that problem-solving process is that a true statement right mr housely does your staff have that when she recaptured

132did she talk about the way that you i think it's kelly's decision to say if she yes and and i will offer my deepest apologies to you mrs b croft you have done a hell of a job as a first year business manager we couldn't have asked for better thank you for what you do because you do a phenomenal job so i hope that what i've said was not an attack on you as a person i consider you a friend let's move forward now let's we're community we're here to educate kids let's just start doing that instead of nitpicking that i'm tired of any more discussion on seven point one seven seven yes i missed it i should say by next month so october seventh or movie i have to prepare the entire annual the

133entire annual financial report on top of that i have to go back and redo another revision of this type this will be the sixth revision so i may or may not be able to and let's do it in november does november give you enough time that would be better i would recommend we move it to november does everybody here have anybody any problem it seems like you're the crowd who's asking for it does november cause you any heartburn great november i will recommend a request that will be put on the agenda for november thank you does that give you time mr speaker great you sure yeah 7.2 approval of contracted services mrs b so mrs marsh is including a proposal for contracted services with the special education here at london this was staffed last year

134that we didn't bill at this time as we've discussed there's a shortage of special education so we're going to contract services with specialty resources did we follow our procurement code in doing this there's there's quote i'll move we approve the contracted services as outlined for mrs martian second one favor aye post motion passes item 7.3 approval of npc dual enrollment amendment mrs b um so npc they're just changing some of the language here to their iga um the intergovernmental agreement they're requesting permission to move forward and amend the dual enrollment iga with the final changes uh which they correct the name of the college from northland pioneer college community district to navajo county community college district dba doing business as north london or college and be correct the out of state student tuition rate from

135379 per credit i will move to approve the npc dual enrollment amendment and i would like to take this opportunity to thank mr housley and mrs b croft for this program i think it is a top-notch program that our students are able to participate in um i think when i first got on the board this was kind of the goal that we were looking at and it come to fruition in a very short time so thank you for doing that and so with that i'll move to approve it in favor motion passes item 7.4 approval of fiscal year 2021-22 sole source providers mr speaker um so we've done several of these over the past couple of months uh this is just an additional uh sole source provider meaning that they're the only ones that provide

136this this service or this product this is the huddle um it's the software that's going to install cameras for the athletics and events that take place in the gym so huddle is used as it's used by all athletic programs around the state used to be as a football coach you used to have the vhs tape you know and then you you'd have to drive to phoenix to pass it on to you catholic who's playing your blue ridge next week now they do it electronically huddle is the avenue that they do that we've combined all of we used to have independent accounts with huddle with all of our it's combined into one now and uh and part of that too is they're installing uh motion cameras at the um at the press box so that someone

137could in south carolina could watch show little football and also in the gymnasium so they could watch volleyball and and um and basketball right now they'll install the one in the gym in the junior high gym and move it to the high school one one will be able to do it on the outside other outside fields baseball softball soccer they they should be portable i know they're calibrated for certain distance and things around um so i'm not that familiar with them but um i know the one they're putting in the junior high gym they have to recalibrate it put in the high school gym because it's a wider field of angle and farther for that or the different athletic groups paying for it um i'm not i know that there was a um a donation

138for some of this i don't know how much of it is but uh we received an anonymous donation for the entire we make sure that our cameras are like the quality of like the bigfoot cameras that people usually take pictures of so that our competition can't really get a good vantage point of our team is that possible yeah i'll move to approve a sole source provider for huddle for 2021 2022. i'll second it motion passes item 8.1 through 8.5 consent agenda message uh so we have for your review uh and approval the ratification of the expense vouchers for the previous month as well 8.2 the ratification of payroll vouchers 8.3 approval of the ptso booster club financials uh 8.4 the approval of the governing board minutes for last board meeting august 12th and 8.5 of

139donations of mr clark yeah i'll read those um and i'd just like to tell again mr housley when i first got on the board um one of the things i asked for was booster club financials btso and this is great thank you i uh i appreciate that it's a a great step for fiscal responsibility and for transparency for our parents i know a lot of people who work with our ptso and our booster club organizations the reason why they donate so generously to our organization is because their symbiotic relationship with our school district and they know what it's going for a great cause so i appreciate that uh that component of having transparency so that's that's great thank you mr housley aps teachers awards donated 500 dollars to mr yeager i think you're going to

140put that to great use right tyler dollar tree show low donated classroom supplies for all schools for wmi or adp program valued at six hundred dollars an anonymous donor raised ten thousand seven hundred and thirty four dollars and thirty four cents for the athletic department for the huddle playback software and camera tom jakari donated a new uh backpack protein vacuum and several small items for district and custodians valued at a thousand dollars uh perkins centers donated 250 to the high school volleyball program the owner's choice made donations to the following teachers at the junior high uh mrs i'm going to botch the shabbat thank you um i'm going to try learn learning with the tr twist project mrs larks let's bring soccer to our schools project miss mcmillan's basic school supplies part two and footballs

141for everyone project and mrs murray's back to school basics project aps donated an additional 500 to miss monae and 500 to mrs halls at the junior high for classroom supplies and arizona suspension donated 250 to the high school volleyball team so as a board i think um like to send our banks and our appreciation to these wonderful uh community partners with us without them we wouldn't be able to do what we do at the shoulder unified school district well thank you and with that i'll move through the consent agenda on favor aye opposed motion to adjourn moved favor hi thank you you