001Good evening. At this time, I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Dysart Unified School District Governing Board to order. Let the record reflect that all board members are present. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Next, we'll move to recognitions and celebrations with a choir performance. Dr. Dean? Thank you, Madam President, members of the governing board, members of cabinet, and our community. This evening, we are pleased to have another one of our outstanding school choirs perform for us, and I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Crotto, who will announce the Marley Park Choir. Thank you, Dr. Dean, Madam President, members of the board, cabinet, guests. I know it's hard to believe that this huge crowd here tonight and everybody's here for Ken's
002annual financial report But it's not as I started to talk they're here for this awesome choir that we're gonna hear from Marley Park So I want to introduce the Marley Park choir under the direction of Laurel Ruff welcome and we're glad you're here. It's all yours That was just beautiful. What grades are represented in your choir Marley Park? They had great energy and you can tell they really loved what they were doing. It was lovely. Thank you. Ken, I think they're coming back. I can feel it. I know it. We don't want to make them feel bad. Yeah. We're just going for a potty break. Yeah. Intermission. Well, next we'll move to item C, address the governing board audience with individuals. Ms. Chauvin? This is the time for the public to comment. Members of the
003board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Pursuant to ARS 38-431.01, action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter, responding to any criticism, or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date. In order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner, a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board. When you approach the podium, please state your name for the record. We have Ms. Linda McGee. Hello, I'm Linda McGee. Nice to meet you. Let me know when we're going to go. We are? Okay. I sent everybody an email that was on the board, and for those also, too, that were running for the board.
004The purpose of this, and I'm going to tell it very quickly, I'm going to read it. The Dysart School Governing Board members and candidates' immediate and ongoing needs, feedback, and commitment, primarily to taxpayers. It is with thanks and others that I support you, and taxpayers and citizen voters appreciate your service in stepping up. However, I and others see some glaring problems, and now especially that we are in the throes of another Governing Board election for a third to a half of you. One, the board, in addition to the Arizona open meeting laws, must communicate accurately, timely, and fully to indicate matters brought forth by the taxpayer and not huddle behind a joint communique from the board only at the meeting, which will almost never occur. The board works for the taxpayer citizens solely, not the
005donor's special interest, which may have supported campaign signage, monies, et cetera. This includes entities such as the 1619 Project Source Open Society, the NAA Act Blue, and so many others, too. Even though you volunteered and told that you would not be paid your... raise your hand and say that you would do this. What does that mean? Above the number one timeline, fully communicate with concerned taxpayers, even if you don't have time. Many of these people did not. We'll talk about that quickly. If you can or won't do this, you need to step down or not run. Just that simple. Three, hold the superintendent accountable in public and at meetings and do not select a new superintendent with outrageous and extreme pay as the outgoing superintendent was paid. The current superintendent shall be paid no more
006than $120,000 in salary, no more than $50,000 in benefits, including those paid by the state for retirement, which the school district must pay. Four, realize that the school board causes the superintendent to work for the board and taxpayers, not the board working for the superintendent, as currently internal Dysart policy implies and or states. These policies must be changed. Establish a true Dysart school board Facebook page to really allow voters to comment on policies and other matters. Six, establish a voice of the taxpayer in most matters and add the taxpayer to the PTSA and other items. Taxpayers are funding this. Not all taxpayers are parents, and in some cases, teachers in the... District 7 stopped the million-dollar so-called slush fund for field trips extracurricular activities and other payments for field trips and other things to help
007students. While many of these things are noteworthy, and this time at bell-typing, we can't afford to do that. Getting to the people that responded, a couple of hat tips. First and foremost to Christine Pritchard and Dawn Densmore, because the Arizona Republic article in January of 2021, you started to address many of the problems that I just addressed in this email. Very good, thank you. You didn't respond to this specifically. Crystal Chabon responded, only what did the board do wrong? Please cite specifics. Joe Grant said that she only votes for student needs and not taxpayers, but she did not take candidate money. Tracy Sinkbell did not respond. Candidates, Tina Malika, no response. William Coney. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Yeah, we only have three minutes per person. Sorry about that, but thank you for your thoughts.
008Thank you. Okay, next we'll move on to Superintendent Governing Board updates. D1 student update. Madam President, Haley was unable to join us this evening. Okay, thank you. Then we'll move on to Superintendent update. Madam President, members of the Governing Board, members of Cabinet, and our community, this evening I have just a couple of exciting things to share with the Governing Board in my update. The first is congratulations to the Dysart High School Marching Band. They took first place at the Abota Verado High School Marching Band Festival last weekend, and in taking first place in their division, they also... pulled off two captions, one for general effects and one for music. Also, congratulations to Willow Canyon High School's marching band. They took second place in their division and also took home two captions, one for percussion
009and one for music. And so even though it's very early in the marching band season, we're very excited about the efforts of Dycher High School and Willow Canyon and look forward to all of our marching bands closing the seasons very strong. Additionally, if the... Board is interested. Shadow Ridge High School is hosting a marching band festival this Saturday. It starts at 4 p.m. and goes well into the evening, as I'm sure our community will enjoy the marching band sounds all day and through the night. Also, we'd like to congratulate our finance department. Our finance department received the GFOA and ASBO. excellence in financial reporting awards again they received the gfoa award for the 18th consecutive year and the asbo award for the 27th or 28th consecutive year congratulations to them and again it just highlights
010the transparency in which our financial department works under and all that information is provided to our community on our website yesterday was day 45 and day 45 is significant in our district because day 45 marks the 25 percent mark of the school year and so we are one quarter of the way through the school year officially actually we're one quarter plus one day officially now at this point in time through the school year we just want to think All of our staff are a tremendous job, a tremendous first quarter, and we look forward to the remainder of the school year. Our staff is awesome. Our kids are awesome. And there's great things that are happening in our schools. And the last thing I have this evening is to remind the board that next week is
011fall break, and we are encouraging our staff to take fall break and to just take some time and unplug and refresh. and come back ready to roll on October 17th to hit the ground running again. And that is my update for the evening. Thank you. Next we'll have Governing Board update. I can go first. Thank you. It was great to see Marley Park here today, and I don't know if you guys happened to notice that I was wearing an old Marley Park T-shirt that had a QR code on the back, and we just tried it, Dana, and it doesn't work, but that's okay. Years ago, it did. That's right. Years ago, it did. So thank you, Marley Park. I also attended the Dysart Candidate Forum that was last week. Surprise in El Mirage, Youngtown, Waddell
012will be going to the ballots to select the two seats for the next four years. So please get a chance and look at the forum again, and please send it out to everybody that you know. Let's see, I also attended the Be Kind People project that was held at Chase Field. I was invited to attend that and great things that are going on not only across the state of Arizona but also the entire nation having to do with the wellness, lifestyles, working with students on their level and it was a great, awesome night. And last but not least, I want to make sure that everybody has a relaxing fall break. You've deserved it. You've worked hard. Please take time to refresh yourself and come back the following Monday. Thank you. I also attended the Dysart
013Candidate Forum. and the City of Surprise Golden Rule Breakfast, which is always something that kind of brings it all back around that we should all keep in mind. And the Marley Park Choir, those two songs, I just teared up with all the things that are going on in this world. They're singing, I want to be somebody to someone. I mean, we all need to take to heart about that one, and I hope we all are covered in sunshine. So thank you. I also attended the Dysart Candidate Forum. I don't really have an update, but I do want to wish everyone a very happy fall break. Take some time and relax and enjoy your families. I also attended the Dysart County. And I also wanted to congratulate Mr. Hicks and his amazing finance department, award-winning department.
014So thank you for all that you do. and I hope everyone enjoys their fall break and takes some time to relax. I was there too. I just don't feel the need to tell everybody every little thing I do. All right. Next we will move to a motion to approve consent agenda items. I move the board approve consent agenda items as presented. Second. Motion made by Christine Pritchard, seconded by Tracy Serra-Sinkvall. Motion carries. Next room to information discussion items, G1, annual expenditure analysis of the voter-approved M&O override. Dr. Dean? Thank you, Madam President, members of the governing board, cabinet, and our community. This evening, Mr. Hicks will provide information as required by law related to the annual expenditure analysis of our voter-approved M&O override. Mr. Hicks, we look forward to your short report. Good evening. Good
015evening, Madam President, members of the board. Acting Superintendent Dr. Dean, colleagues, and community members, I am pleased to present our annual M&O override report tonight. First, I would like to begin with thanking our community and our taxpayers for their support and for providing these additional funds. As acting superintendent Dr. Dean has mentioned, this is a requirement for any school district that has an M&O override in place that they are required to have in public meeting between September 1st and October 31st each year to update on the program. Just a little bit of history just the brief history not the entire history as this goes back even further But just in 2014 when it did fail there was a reduction in place for the following year coming back around November 2015 it was reauthorized at the
016full 15% and went back up and then in 2020 it was renewed at the 15% The override purpose, which is in just a few main areas, which was identified in the voter information pamphlet, is to retain highly qualified teachers, keep class sizes manageable, classroom resources for reading, math, and programs including music, art, athletics, and full-day kindergarten. Just a little bit of history recent history on just the amount and the tax rate associated with to provide those funds So the amounts are in millions and then the tax rate associated with that over the previous years Here is the actual actual dollar amounts in each related category of retaining highly qualified teachers is the 2.28 million class size reduction 9 million reading math 7.8 return the full-day kindergarten program 2 million dollars. I know Acting superintendent. Dr.
017Dean said can you put a little more context into it? Ginger just that the Highly qualified teachers is approximately 2.25 percent of all of our teachers Compensation is supported by that. Our class size reduction is approximately 128 teachers that are provided. So that would equate to, if we lost that, probably an increase of about three per class size going across. Our reading, math, music, and art, we are supporting curriculum specialists, instructional coaches, TLSs, and a lot of specials. So the specials that are associated with music, art. are also provided. And then also the return to kindergarten is 29 FTEs. So that would really essentially take every kindergarten teacher and just cut those FTEs in half. So it does provide a lot of support and is felt throughout our budget. And that is the end of
018the report. And I'll stand for any questions. Thank you. I have a question. So, Mr. Hicks, would you say that all the override funds are properly allotted and they are being used in the proper context? Madam President, members of the board, if you're asking from what the voters approved, yes. So there is no amount that the voters approved that are going to anything other than what it's specified for? Correct. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Yeah, a question. So when we talk about the class size reduction, I think you, did I hear you right that you said about 29? Class size reduction is 129. I'm sorry, as far as the actual class size, is that the goal? They would go up about three. Maybe I misheard you. We have, Madam President, members of
019the board, we have different grade levels, have different class sizes, and so the overall total would go by about three. By three teachers. Three kids per class. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. No, it's okay. So as far as the class size reduction, are we doing okay as far as our class sizes? Madam President, members of the board, that's more of a loaded question. Intentional. Sorry. Class sizes being as low as possible is always a goal. We have an MOU that identifies our classroom class goals We are within that we do follow that There are times when it exceeds and if there's space available We will provide a teacher and if there's budget capacity the difficulty in that is For example if two kids show up at a grade It could now mean that we're over
020class size goal. Are we adding a teacher for just those two kids that tripped it? We're not getting associated revenue. And so the cost would be greater than the revenue, which we'll have to analyze our budget at that point to see. Flip side is, are you going to find a teacher? So are we posting just to not find one or are we providing maybe an instructional aid in that classroom or to that grade level to support that grade level then? So there's multiple areas to address in that. Our MOU identifies some of those supports. We will go through that whole process. We obviously want lowest class size possible. We hear from the parents. We'll hear from teachers. We'll hear from principals. So we try to balance everything with our resources and our needs. Thank you
021very much. Just one quick question as a reminder. This is a five. These are five years overrides, correct? So the next one would be 2025? Oh, my gosh. Madam President, members of the board, they're fully funded for five years. You'll have to go out after that. It starts phasing down. Just a good reminder. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next we'll move to information discussion item G2, information on student support services. Dr. Dean. Thank you, Madam President, members of the Governing Board, members of Cabinet, and our community. This evening, Dr. Asai will provide information on, continuing information on support services that we provide for our students. Dr. Asai. Good evening, Madam President and members of the Board. Tonight I will be presenting an informational item on student support services in Dysart. In Dysart,
022we understand that we teach more than standards. We also teach students. As such, we do provide social and emotional supports, although this is not a curriculum. We always strive to support the whole child daily by teaching things like responsibility, problem solving, productive relationships, and goal setting. What we do not teach, to be clear, is anything that would infringe on parental rights. Rather, the focus is on state standards and how to foster character and social-emotional skills so students can work productively within the school climate. So how do we do this? We have several programs. First, we have the Be Kind program, which was approved by this board earlier this year. And remember Sawyer's Seek Ball, just referred to it. Be Kind focuses on 10 essential skills. Be encouraging, supportive, positive, helpful, honest, considerate, thankful, responsible, respectful,
023and be a friend. Some campuses use the traditional version of character counts, which focuses on solely the six pillars of being trustworthy, respectful, responsible, fair, caring, and being a good citizen. Our high schools and sports use character matters. The majority of our schools have a PBIS structure in place where school-wide expectations are emphasized. Some common ones are be ready, be responsible, and be respectful. And within that, they really do a nice job at teaching kids this is what this means in the halls, this is what this means on the playground, this is what this means in the classroom setting, because occasionally some of our friends get confused. And, of course, we encourage teachers to tune in to students just really to get to know them so they can identify when more support is needed. Of
024course, we do have more formal ways of identifying student needs, such as 45-day screeners, RTI systems for both academics and behavior. We have IEPs, which at times contain social and emotional goals. And next year, we will have a mandatory kindergarten entry assessment, which was part of Senate Bill 1572. This makes the administration of the KEA mandatory next year and it screens for cognitive development, physical and motor development, social emotional development, language and literacy development, math and numeracy. We do have systems that help us when something happens. So I just wanted to review those quickly. How students receive supports. Some students are supported via check-ins and check-outs, which is fairly popular, where we remind kids, here are the expectations for the day. Sometimes it's for the morning and afternoon. Sometimes it's each hour. We also do
025things like social stories with kids to really rehearse with them what the expectations are. We also have skills-based groups with behavior coaches, classroom behavior support plans, referrals to social workers who run small groups for specific needs like grief, anger management, problem solving, and goal setting. And we use these at times when parents request it. We also sometimes need to give parents referrals. They'll ask for outside referrals of things that we can't help kids with because we don't have full-time counselors at all of our schools. So we'll help them connect with community services when asked. We have crisis teams and threat assessment teams in place. And when students are suspended for a period of time, we help create reentry plans to help them transition back to be successful in the setting they might not have been
026successful in before. I think it would be remiss if we didn't also mention our schools do great things like have food pantries, clothing closets. We also provide transportation for our homeless students via McKinney-Vento. And those are some of the ways we continue to support our kids in Dysart. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I appreciate the review of social-emotional learning, specifically how it's utilized in our DICERT classrooms. As Dr. Asai has presented, social-emotional learning in its nature isn't all bad. Sadly, SEL has been politicized, and it sometimes has been used as a medium for integrating inappropriate content into our classrooms, where some may say it's used as a disguise. And unfortunately, I believe that to be true because I have heard firsthand accounts from our parents who have experienced this. But I think anyone who
027says DICERT doesn't have any problems with the implementation of SEL is naive or definitely misinformed. Everyone stumbles upon problems. What's important is that when these rare instances are discovered in DICERT, our current administration addresses and resolves them immediately. I believe that some SEL lessons are best left at home, as I believe they are oftentimes based in individual family values, and it's not our place to push our own moral compasses on children when it comes to issues that may be more controversial in nature. That said, some skills that are rooted in social-emotional learning are very relevant to the educational setting and bring great value in helping students navigate their school day. For an example, communication skills. solving problems with words rather than their hands with their friends or emotional regulation skills on how to recognize when
028you might need to take a break count to 10 as opposed to flipping a desk in front of 25 of your friends in a classroom and risking injury to others so distinguishing between what social emotional learning lessons should be taught in school versus what should be taught at home I think is is the key so again What skills are relevant to assisting children in navigating their instructional day is where we should be, I believe, focused. So just like our students who have IEP goals for physical therapy, the physical therapy goals that they'll be focusing on in school may have to do with successfully maneuvering stairs, et cetera. If you want physical therapy to attain the skills of a marathon runner, then you're going to have to get those skills outside of school. Same is true
029with SEL with the examples that I provided regarding communication skills. Some lessons are very relevant to helping students be successful during their school day. Other controversial SEL topics that are grounded in morality, family values, et cetera, are best left at home where parents can teach those lessons in such a way that aligns with their own family values. cultures, et cetera, and where it doesn't interfere with the teacher's ability to use class time to teach academic content. So I think it was important to have this discussion in order to alleviate any apprehension that our community as well as our administration or staff members have when it comes to defining acceptable uses of what social-emotional learning is in Dysart. It shouldn't be feared. It just needs to be used appropriately. So I hope... This has provided some
030clarity, but I'd be happy to discuss further if there's still some concern or something else that I can help clarify. Just so moving forward, we can not be afraid of the word and use it again in the way that best makes sense for the context of helping our students navigate their day, not teach morality, family values during our instructional time. Madam President, I would add two things to the discussion. One, that we are vigilant in making certain that exactly what you stated does not take part in our school day. There are things from the SEL perspective that should be handled in the home, and we are respectful of and expectant of that. to occur outside of the school day. The second thing that I would like to clarify using one of your examples is that
031I am not one that seeks skills in becoming a marathon runner, but I'm glad that that exists for those of us that are interested in that. I wanted to clarify that that does not apply to me. Got it. Okay. Well, and I do want to thank you, Dr. Dean, and your team when we did have an instance where there was an SEL. book shared in a classroom you were you immediately addressed the issue resolved it properly and I'm thankful for the fact that you're always open to hearing when those concerns arise and as opposed to just it doesn't happen in Dysart doesn't happen in Dysart so I do appreciate your open-mindedness when it comes to that and how quick you are in resolving the issue I have a couple questions but first Dr. Dean if
032you ever decide that you want to run a marathon You can train with my husband and I, okay? All right. I do have a question, though. How much time in the classroom is spent on SEL? Do we have, like, an estimate? And then also, do we differentiate? Because some students... Just don't really need a whole lot of social emotional learning. Are they just stuck sitting there listening to a lesson and going I don't why am I here? I have to be honest members today I don't think it's a great amount of time by any means our schedules are so packed tight like if you see an elementary And I think mostly elementary when I say this even though we do, you know in high school Hey, we need to be respectful. What does that mean
033when I was in the classroom if something was going on I might say hey, you know what does it mean to be respectful when we're in an assembly? If that was an issue and our kids would kind of write about it, turn to your partner and talk, is a bell work. For character accounts, when I was at Canyon, we had teachers simply nominate kids every month who showed the trait of being trustworthy. And January was trustworthy month, and we recognized them at our honor roll assembly by giving them those things. I think most of our things like that, especially in relation to the skills associated with PBIS are taught at the beginning of the year. When we talk about what does respectful look like on the playground, in the classroom? What does responsibility look like?
034which I do think is good reminders for all of our kids. I like to think I did a pretty good job of raising my kids at home, but I know they needed a reminder once or twice. The differentiation comes if kids were working in small groups, I believe, with our social worker or something like that. We used to do lunch bunch with some of our kids at Canyon with parent permission that, hey, we want to come in. My child's having trouble making friends. If I buy three kids a pizza, can you get permission from their parents to come in? We definitely don't have time to sacrifice in reading and math. You've seen our scores. They need to come up. We don't have a lot of time to divert from that along with science. So I
035think like for citizenship, you heard us talk about citizenship. That would be embedded within a social studies lesson. When we talk about what does it mean to be a good citizen? It means to donate to your community. Donate, but yeah, donate time, things like that. It means to be involved. So I think they're more embedded than anything else. So you wouldn't say there's a dedicated time. I do not have a social emotional time on any master schedule that I have, nor if we got that, would we say this is a great master schedule. Our master schedule is run with academic times from bell to bell. Okay. And I know that things come up throughout the day in your classroom. And most of the time, it just comes up with little student A is mad at
036student B. And so you got to pull those two aside and you have to kind of help them process while the other students are working. I just. I want to make sure that we're not spending a lot of time and we're not giving the social emotional learning to kids who don't really need it. And I think you did a great example. You were in the classroom. It's, hey, I'm going to pull you over. Or, okay, hey, instead of pounding on our desk when we got mad, what would be a better option when other kids are working that we might attend to those things? And just in general talking about what does it mean to be positive? And so that's kind of the context we're talking about when we're talking about how to manage your anger,
037how to manage this and that. We're not taking a whole group lesson and saying, all right, everybody, we're going to from 810 to 820, 810 to 830, we're going to talk about anger. Yeah, we're not doing yoga. Not a stay in the class. Yeah, no. Marathons. I think Mr. Dean would like to teach that if we do it, though. So if we can see him do that, I might say, let's do it for five minutes a day. Thank you. I'm glad Ms. Chaffin brought that up because it reminded me. I have heard, and I take it with a grain of salt, and I always run it by one of you guys as far as whether it be social media or... parent concern that this is happening classrooms or we either have a social worker or
038a counselor or someone doing a whole group lesson on social emotional learning. I agree that our scores aren't where they need to be and we need to be focusing on academics in school so I'm glad to hear you saying that that's not happening or should it be happening. So if there were opportunities like that that maybe our counselors were wanting to have bigger group type discussion I'm hoping those would always be a an opt-in type situation where like you mentioned the lunch bunch if you want to go and talk with a social worker or your counselor about this particular issue it's an opportunity but we're not doing whole classroom social emotional lessons instead of math as a regular rule I don't believe we are okay I do think that there are times of my entire
039fifth grade got kind of squirrely we might you know we might take five minutes, ten minutes when we come back and say, okay, let's talk about this. Because sometimes there's problems that go throughout a whole grade that there would be a need to do that. I think it's more on a needed basis. Okay, but certainly not a okay once a week. We're going to do this for an hour. Okay. No, thank you for clarifying that and then sorry We're also making sure that we're teaching social studies curriculum not just social emotional learning during social studies, right? Madam President miss Chapman. I would like to answer this We are making sure that we are teaching history curriculum within the scope of our social studies State standards. Thank you so much standards I know we talked a
040little bit about the scheduling. It sounded like maybe it was leaning a little bit more towards K through 8, but I know in the past we've set aside some block time in some of our high schools for, depending on the school, you called it different things. At Valley it was Stormwatch. I think at Shadow it was Stride. Are we still using that type of scheduling and then inviting some of that SEL in? Madam President, Ms. Densmore, we have transitioned our advisory times at the high school. So as you mentioned, Stormwatch or Stride, they're becoming academic intervention times is really what they're being designated as. We look forward to the opportunity to share with the board some things that specifically Shadow Ridge is doing with their Stride program. And they're seeing great academic gains because it's
041all dedicated to academic intervention and academic enrichment. And it involves every kid on the campus academically. And so we... we have our high schools are structuring their their advisory times to be significantly more academic in nature thank you And then but if somebody did have maybe a social emotional need as an individual We would maybe try to take advantage of that time. That would be a good time to do that individual student Yes, absolutely and again we you know when as dr. Si mentioned when we have Times that the things like that happen or we have a need for a group or what have you those are opt-in parents are contacted on those I mean there are opt-in and then if we have students who who have needs beyond what it is that we are
042capable of providing. We have outside services in which we can refer that often come at very little to no cost. Perfect. Thank you. I just have a, I want to clarify what you, something that you said. So this new law about screening kindergartners. Could you please talk about that some more like what that maybe it's too early to decide but what is it kind of gonna look like is it after they're enrolled they'll begin screening them my understanding so far and I've attended one entire webinar on it so far Yeah, no my understanding is and my sister-in-law does something like it in New Jersey. It's really taking anecdotal notes on kids We use a similar type of portfolio assessment kind of in our preschool right now and taking anecdotal notes to see if kids reach
043certain milestones set by curriculum it is it is a mandatory program the state has has said we will do so we will find out from the state exactly what that entails more and more is it similar to early intervention maybe I'm looking at Dana because I know Dana knows more about it than I do. Madam President, Member Dantimore, Member Grant, I can weigh in here. So this was a bill that was passed in the legislative session last year. The governor signed it into law, went into effect on September 24th, but its requirement starts for next school year. And the intent, we believe, is to create, we believe this, although, as Dr. Tsai stated, we've... seen one webinar so far the intent is to provide a very early intervention screening for students in five different areas
044in which then the hope would be or the intent would be that we quickly provide intervention in each of those five areas to be able to get students off to a great start once they start kindergarten there's a couple of requirements that we are aware of that we wish didn't exist one is that you cannot start that screening until school starts so we're hoping that we can bring our kindergartners in early and and go through that screening because it's going to take some time and and our concern is that that takes time out of the classroom and so you know we will be working to create programs that minimize any disruption from our teachers teaching our students and still meet the requirements of that but as as the year progresses and as we receive more
045information from the state on that we certainly will be able to keep the board better informed is there anything in there about for example if a student is in a dysart preschool that you can use you can evaluate them because they're in preschool getting ready to go to kindergarten. Is there anything in there that would opt that child in prior to entering kindergarten? Madam President, Member Grant, we wish the answer was yes because we do that assessment now with our preschool students, but it does require that once students start kindergarten that they are assessed. I know you may not know this, but I'm sure you've thought about it. Who would manage that process? Who would actually be doing the... Right now it states that the kindergarten teacher will, I believe. So it's going to put,
046we're really working to come up with some good professional development and help our, to help our kindergarten teachers because they already do so much. You know, how are we going to help them and support them in doing it? It's a new skill. They had a new reading curriculum this year that they're doing a great job with, you know, and this is going for next year. However, we're very hopeful that by taking these types, this type of data, that it'll really help them. you know, pay now for gain later. And hopefully we can figure out ways to make it integrate seamlessly into our curriculum. The first year, I'm sure that'll be difficult, but the more we know about it and the more training and support we can provide. So I have an idea. How about smaller
047class sizes? Just saying. We all love that idea. Anything else? All right. We'll move on to, thank you very much for that information. Appreciate it. Discussion. Next we'll move to action discussion items H1, recommendation to approve the annual financial report and related financial reports for fiscal year 2021-2022. Dr. Dean. Madam President, members of the governing board, cabinet, and members of our community, this evening Mr. Hicks is here to present the AFR for 21-22. Before he does so, and I know that he will echo this in his presentation, I would like to just personally thank our... Finance director Mary Dell Spidell and the amount of time that she spent over multiple weekends Completing this so that it was done a on time as required by law But more importantly closing out the books and so her
048time Her personal time that she spent is valuable to our community. So Mary Dell. Thank you Mr. Higgs. Thank you very much Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Acting Superintendent Dr. Dean, colleagues and community members. As stated, I'm here to present our annual financial report for the 21-22 year. Thank you very much for your acknowledgement. She does an amazing job, her and her team, and every year it seems the legislature adds additional requirements, more work to be done, and her and her team just take it and their efficiencies in creating... and I'm using technical terms, our CellSense and some other reportings out of our software to automate it so that they spend a lot of time up front and do it even though it still takes more time. It's amazing the amount of
049work and what they do. I do acknowledge or appreciate the board, the board president acknowledging all the work and you gave me some accolades. You know and you've acknowledged this before. It's the team that's behind me that does an amazing job. So I do appreciate all of your comments and I am a reflection of it. all the things they do because they do such an amazing job. So I will just jump right in really quick. And so our annual financial report also by law that we have this meeting before October 15th. And so this obviously qualifies for that. I'm just gonna go through a quick summary of some of this will hit a little bit more on a report at the end So just just summarizing our budget and expense total budget at M&O 176
050spending 170 so 70% of it spent in regular education Those are the four main program codes that are required for our Auditor General and our USFR the capital funds With our budget now, although it looks like it not looks like there is over five million dollars to carry forward There's a lot of things that did not show up and so those roll forward So there is a lot of commitments buses and other things that have long lead times And so that doesn't necessarily mean all that money is available for spending in the next year. Our debt service and our emergency grant building renewal grant program, that is through the Arizona School Facilities Oversight Board. They did run out of money last year, so although we were awarded with some, we did not get all the
051funding last year. It did start up again right away in July once they got the appropriations from the legislature to continue and they got additional appropriations. We expect that to continue to grow. That's a growing amount. Mr. Young and his team will continue to evaluate and work very well with our liaison to get as much as possible from the state Our classroom site fund, I feel bad on this slide, it's all by itself. It used to have three funds, but the law changed and collapsed it all down to one fund, and so you're just seeing the total. It is important to note on this that you cannot transfer these funds out of this fund. They have to stay in and stay in for their intended purposes. Ours go all 100%, or almost 100% to salaries
052and compensation to our eligible certified staff. So with this increase, you're probably... keenly aware that we increased the amount that's going to our teachers for this year by $1,000. That's because our balance is growing and so we're trying to anticipate, promote, and project going forward those amounts and so we did give those certified staff an additional $1,000 out of this fund for this year. Here's the the big one our special project funds federal grants this Is a huge large portion it didn't used to be but our esser funds and all of those funds Are really large now and so 70 that 70 million dollar budget with 33 expense so far So we're still on our esser journey as we go through that our state grants This is mainly our results based funding college credit exam
053incentive program and some vocad food service. This also has a huge increase over previous years and in the past, not for this year, but in the past, all meals were free during the COVID time. And so our meal count were up. substantially that generates more revenues more expenses Other cash funds is just a collection of all the other community ed Auxiliary operations gifts and donation all of those additional cash funds and then this is new is that I put the instructional improvement fund on here just it wasn't captured anywhere other and Summary total so I just wanted to share the the budget of 1.3 1.1 being spent that goes probably about 30% to teacher compensation and the other 70% is for our specialist TLS curriculum specialist for instructional improvement Here is the sum, the total
054looking at those various funds and our carry forward balances. And so you can see it does total 25 million. That is an increase from last year of a couple million dollars. The primary growth of that is that classroom site fund. So as that was growing, that also supported giving more money to teachers out of that fund to kind of bring that down. a little bit projected for this coming year. We do have to project that everybody gets full amount that includes the performance pay. And so a lot of times it's gonna end with a large balance because not everybody gets it. We also don't like to give every single thing out because it creates a little exposure that if you're adding teachers during the year or for the following year, it's not there. So we
055take a little bit of a conservative approach to the budgeting and expense and projections on our classroom site fund. I do like to just put a little bit of context for what is happening over the last four years. And so this shows ADM, our average daily membership, that does treat preschool and kindergarten kids at half. And then I also like to show weighted student count. So that is... Really more indication of our special ed services that we're providing in those Funding that we're receiving on that so you can see how they move sometimes they move together. Sometimes you have growth So our way to student count growing greater than our ADM means that we're having more and more special ed services as part of our budget The additional information that's historically been in is just
056showing what outstanding bonds we have. So at the end of last year, we paid off some bonds, and so we're ending with $83 million. There's no short-term debt. The other financial considerations is just something we track as something that is a rebate for our EFT payments to our vendors. The more that we get signed up and the quicker that we pay them, the more. Rebate we get back so revenue coming back to us from that it had been growing every year And so it went down a little bit But that is we do have to get the vendors to approve to agree to accept an electronic funds transfer on that And we do get that money back Here's the report that I spend a little bit more time on in general I Will just say
057in general we don't need to spend a ton of time. Please take it back. Please ask questions, but I normally talk about Part of reason why I've always liked this report is when people look at the Auditor General report It looks at all funds and I really didn't want to always look at all funds I wanted to talk about the funds that the board had the most total control Food service money. We can't say let's give teachers a raise with food service money because it's so restricted So I'd like to pull that out Because of the ESSER funds and we moved a lot of our expenses down, the Auditor General report is now probably the more accurate one to look at. So where I used to say let's focus on, and this one is the
058blue line, focused on the top portion, I would really say the best is to focus on the bottom. And once again, it is an estimated Auditor General dollars in the CLASH report because Ms. Bidell has such a great team. Ms. Lisa Smith provides this to us, and last time she was 100% accurate. And so she is a great predictor of what this is going to be for us. So that is why we also don't have peer district or state average. That has not been updated. That report does not come out from the Auditor General until the end of February or the 1st of March. And so we'll plug that information in there. But really what you look at with the Auditor General is that a little bit more money went in, very small, slight increase
059going into the classroom. And then slight decrease in administrative costs. You can see that in total of all of our funds, 8.48% is to administrative costs, so that's a positive because as we know and we hear so much, we want more money in the classroom, less money in administrative costs. And so that's an indication of that. We do have a decrease in our plan operations. And an increase in transportation and food service on the right is the other category. So we monitor all this. This provides a little bit more detailed look in the percentages, and you've got a historical view and context of where those are moving over the years. And so I will not go through all of that, but I will also share that not that report, but all the other budget, annual
060financial report, and our ACPRs are all posted online with historical. So you could look at previous years as well. That's available on our website. And I will stand for any questions. Thank you very much. As usual, I enjoy your thorough review of our budget. Just for clarity and transparency, because I believe recently there was a comment made about teacher pay. I know that this board has never... voted against any action to increase teacher pay. As far as what we have in our budget, can you just clarify that there is not a larger... chunk of money that the board is sitting on or administration is sitting on that we could be giving more money to teachers but we're choosing not to anything that we've ever whether it be out of IBA or just any monies that
061we have available that can go to teachers this board has always approved those increases so just again to clarify it's not like there is more money that they should be given but we're choosing not to madam president members of the board a great comment It gets a little complex in that, for example, ESSER. We have ESSER funds. We have not exhausted all of our ESSER. We gave a retention stipend. You could say, let's give teachers a 30% retention stipend one time. Not now, but say last year. Could you have done that? Probably. We would have had the money. It wouldn't have funded all the other programs that we're funding, permanent subs, support, our student support technicians to help with behavior issues, so the technology. So there is a little wee. I would say the board
062has not been against providing any voting for any raises to go to teachers because we try to do a balance and we work with our teams, our IBA process to look at all the different needs. For example, this last year with the transportation, there was an increase there. You didn't have to give that. We could have given it to teachers, but then. we had no bus drivers and no kids are getting to school and teachers can't work. So looking at just one thing and individually is probably out of balance. So we try to look at the whole system of all and what we're doing and we bring as many people in and we talk with the board early on, we talk with our IBA team, we're looking at everything. And so I would say we
063do a great job of allocating out and paying as much possible to all. All of our staff as much as possible some get a little more I would say if there's any bucket it is the classroom site fund that has a large balance that could only be used for the certified teacher they added up of added a few additional categories last year when the law changed, but we take a conservative approach to that because that is not Guaranteed funding going on over and over it has ebbs and flows and goes ups and down and so we try to absorb those with a little bit more of a balance. So it does have a little bit more of a balance in there. That would be the only place. It can only be used for certified teachers.
064So at some time, some point, it's going to get to them. We're just trying to use our analytics, use our predictives, work with the legislature, understand when the funding comes out and what's the most appropriate way to give all that money. We could use all the classroom side funding money, give it to all the teachers, and the next year they would take a cut. So is that the... best thing for them to see an increase and then the next year it go down. It's about responsibility. We try and looking at the whole program, the whole system and balance in that sense. So that's what I would say. Thank you for clarifying that. You're welcome. Any other questions from the board? No, I just appreciate your comments about the balance and looking at the whole picture
065and seeing everything and everything that goes into educating our students, not just one tunnel. So thank you. I do have one quick question. It had to do with the special project funds. With the expense for the state grants, it ended up being more than the budget. We expended more? Page six. We did. Just curious, what did we do? Do you know what 466 fund is? There was an extraordinary special education fund that we received revenue we didn't. I did not know it at the time and put in the budget on that side, but we got the money and we spent the money, so it shows an expense greater than the budget. From last year to this year? We're just talking just last year. Just last year. Yeah. Okay. So it was not a budget controlled
066in the sense that there's anything wrong with that. It does probably mean we have to explain that to our auditors when they look and they see that we spend more than budget. We have to give them explanations. Why didn't we know ahead of time? So it probably added more to our audit question, but it was the extraordinary needs. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you so much. Madam President, I would remind the board that this is an action item that we would need a motion to accept. Or Mr. Hicks will not leave me alone until we get that. I move the board approve the annual financial report and related financial reports for fiscal year 2021-2022. Second. Motion made by Christine Pritchard, seconded by Don Densmore. Motion carries. Next we move to requests for future agenda
067items. Anyone? Yes, I have one. I would like to see, and this can be an information item. the breakdown as for our guidance counselors, like what their caseload is, how often are they pulled out of being a counselor, if they fill in in other areas, and what the average is for other districts in the state. Can you go ahead and submit that form just so Louisa has it? Next, we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARS 38-431.03A1 for the purpose of discussing the finalists that interviewed for the position of district superintendent. So I move that we adjourn to executive session. Motion made by Christine Pritchard, seconded by Joe Grant. Motion carries. We're adjourned for executive session. Okay, this time we'll reconvene the regular meeting. We move to action discussion K-1. Governing Board will
068discuss and may consider offering a specific candidate the opportunity to enter into contract negotiations for the position of District Superintendent. At this time I move that the governing board enter into contract negotiations with Dr. Jim Dean for the position of superintendent of the Dysart Unified School District and authorize Christine Pritchard to contact the district attorney to assist in the negotiation process if Mr. Dean should accept the offer to enter into contract negotiations with the board. Second. Motion made by Christine Pritchard, seconded by Tracy Sawyer-Sinkville. Motion carries unanimously. He may not accept it. Is it appropriate for me to just say thank you? So it's been my greatest honor to serve this district for 18 years now, and I appreciate the opportunity to continue to lead and to work with this fine team. So thank you
069from the bottom of my heart for this opportunity. Thank you. So does that mean you accept the offer to enter into contract negotiations? Yes, and thank you again very much. Thank you. Are you saying yes to this? I'm just making sure, just to be clear. Okay, next we move to adjournment. A motion that we adjourn the meeting. Motion made by Christine Pritchard, seconded by Joe Grant. Motion carries. Good night.