Dysart Governing Board Meeting - October 13, 2021

001At this time, I'll call the meeting of the Dysart Unified School District to order. Let the record reflect that all board members are present. And we'll go ahead and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next up, we have our recognitions and celebrations. Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. Dr. Dean will introduce this item. Good evening, Madam President, members of the governing board, Dr. Kellis, and members of cabinet. This evening we are pleased to have join us the Dysart Dance Company under the direction of Ms. Henriksen, and the dance company is going to perform two

002dances for us this evening. And so the floor is now yours. We'd like to say thank you to Ms. Hendrickson and the Dice Art Dance Company for coming out this evening as we celebrate one of our three A's, and that's the art. So if you could all come back out one more time and all take a round of applause, that would be great. Let's give them another round of applause. Thank you all very much. Next, we have audience with individuals. Madam President, we don't have any speakers tonight. Next, we have D1. Do we have a student update? Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. This evening we're pleased to welcome Jocelyn Poundstone back to the podium to give us a student update. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board,

003Dr. Kellis, cabinet, and community. My name is Jocelyn Poundstone, and I am a member of the Dysart Student Leadership Council. Every meeting we discuss the state of Dysart High Schools to get a pulse check of all the schools and students. It is great to report that all schools have had or will be having a traditional homecoming this year, including dances, assembly, and spirit weeks. We discussed how we could be leaders on our campuses to tackle current problems that are impacting our student bodies. Our councils have been actively working together to support Valley Vista Council, who is going to be hosting the AASC Spirit Conference this year, November 2nd. This is giving us an awesome opportunity to get to know the other councils and work together towards a common goal. We are also putting our servant

004leadership into action by planning a community service drive this semester. We look forward to sharing more accomplishments with you all. Thank you. Thank you, Jocelyn. Thank you very much, Jocelyn. Next, we have item D2, superintendent update. Dr. Kellis. Thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet this evening I would like to take a moment and present two board members with certificates of orientation from the Arizona School Boards Association and these board members are Crystal Chaffin and Joe Grant so thank you for being trained to be board members So that proves we have a professional board This is the week before fall break and we'd like to extend the safest wishes to all of our students and staff and our community and that everybody comes back well rested, relaxed, and ready to

005finish out the semester. That's all I have to report. Thank you very much. Next we have a governing board update. I'll go ahead and start. Just a couple of things. And I, quite honestly, and my apologies, I did not know that there was an actual National Principals Month. And so it is a great thing to actually see our principals' smiling faces that you guys do a lot. quite honestly i don't know if i could do your work so i am very appreciative of everything that you guys go through thank you very much for doing what you do uh... attended the mary poppins uh... musical that was over at Willow Canyon High School. And as I said it before, I will continue saying it again. There is a crazy lady that sits in the back and

006sings all the songs. And so I'm just apologizing again. I love this. This is the stuff I grew up with. So I really appreciate all the musicals and everything. So thank you, Willow Canyon. October 6th, I attended the Dysart Interfaith. community council that was held here and I believe this is hopefully this is our first of many and this is the way that communities and faith-based organizations can come together with our schools and see what need is needed and connect with our schools so thank you for attending everybody there It is definitely true when it says it takes a village to raise a child, and so I firmly believe that with the people that were in this room for that particular breakfast. Later on, attended the Cardinals, what was it, Milk and Cookies literacy that

007was over at El Mirage, and the Arizona cheerleaders were there, the Big Red, the... the bird, I'm a Steelers fan, so I'm sorry. But they were all there. The kids were great. They loved it. They read books to the students. And quite honestly, I think Mr. Hicks had the best time there because he was laughing all throughout and he was just really getting into it. So it was a great, great day. I think that was about it. Have a great fall break. Come back. Rejuvenate it, revitalize. That's for the staff, that's for the students. And we'll see you back week after next. Thank you. Well, it looks like I was following Tracy around town because I also attended the superintendent's interfaith council meeting and I did go to Mary Poppins. really talented kids there. And

008I did also go to the Arizona Cardinals Milk and Cookies at El Mirage Elementary School and that was a lot of fun. Big Red was the biggest hit. And the chicken dance. He was showing us. Thank you. So for my update, I attended the Surprise Farms community meeting at Canyon Ridge where the big topic was discussing high-density housing, an amendment that was being made for their community. It was nice to see a lot of people really concerned about our schools, even people that don't necessarily have children in our schools any longer. They've aged out. So lots of concern there, so that was nice to see. I also attended the ABOTA marching band competition on October 2nd at Millennium, as well as the AZMBA marching band competition at Canyon View. And on September 30th, I was

009part of a focus group for NSBA and NAMM, where we discussed the challenges and obstacles for growing music education opportunities in our schools. And most recently, I became a member of the Arizona Coalition of School Board Members. And with that, one of the... mission statements that they have is just being essential to find an association that promotes student success and parental rights. And that's all I have. Next up, we have the consent agenda items. And I move to approve the consent agenda items as presented. Second. Seconded by Tracy. Motion passes. Next, we have item G1, information discussion. Dr. Pellis Thank You madam president members of the board and members of cabinet. Dr. Crotto will introduce this item Thank You. Dr. Kellis madam president members the board superintendent Kellis cabinet and guests tonight. We move on

010to section 5 of our policy monitoring board monitoring there are We move to section 5 as I said, there are no Revisions for section 5 and mr. Hicks will stand for any questions that you may have on I love saying that. I have a couple questions. For policy 5.13, it mentions a civic center fund, and I'm just curious if that is old language or... If I just don't know what that is. Thank you, Madam President. Ken Hicks will explain what the Civic Center Fund is. Madam President, members of the board, it is not old language. We still use the Civic Center Fund. It is for facility rental. That is the main revenue and expenses that come in and out of that fund. Is that the same thing then as Community Ed? No, Community Ed is

011also a separate fund. They're both separate funds? Yep, two separate funds. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. You're welcome. I may have follow-up questions for you later. The other question I had is on policy 5.19. While the title of it mentions purchasing, there is no mention of purchasing buses within the policy. Madam President, members of the board, I noticed that myself when I read through it. It is the language and recommended in it, and it does just mention that we will... Comply with all federal and state laws which we do and all of our vendors do also Maybe it's a little redundant in that since we follow all of our state and federal rules laws So do we actually have like an unwritten policy though as far as purchasing buses? Madam President, members of the

012board, this is our policy. We go to, we use cooperatives. So we work with either auto safety house or some of the three big ones. And we'll work to identify what our current fleet is and what our needs are and then work with getting quotes through those procurements. Okay. Methodology. So we still procure it through the consortiums. Thank you. Any other discussion, questions? Okay. Thank you very much. So Madam President this is up for review unless there are changes that happen this evening or recommended language changes and this will not be coming back again until next year at this time. But any board member could potentially bring one of them back? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I understand it won't be automatic. Next is item G2. Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board,

013and members of cabinet. Dr. Pulling will introduce this item. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Kellis, cabinet, and community. It's my pleasure to introduce Ms. Emily Dean, principal of Asante Preparatory Academy, who will be giving the first school report tonight. The hardest challenge. So good evening, Madam President Dunsmore, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Kellis, cabinet and colleagues and community members. I'm Emily Dean. I'm the very proud principal of Asante Preparatory Academy. I am so grateful to be here to talk about our school today. I think our school is absolutely the most wonderful place to be in the Dysart Unified School District. I want to thank a huge team that stands behind me. including my amazing TLS, Alana Imers, who is here this evening, and Ms. Rosenthal, our assistant principal, who are

014obviously key members of the leadership team. Asante opened up just two years ago with about 300 students, and this year we opened up with 795 students, so we're going to talk about challenges as we go through, and that is probably one of our biggest challenges, been the hyper-growth that we are facing out in our area. When we opened up Asante, and I can move forward here. We became the Rangers that was adopted for the Army Rangers because we're off Pat Tillman Boulevard. We opened up with the community wanting to look at an accelerated learning model for students. So we have focused on that accelerated learning model being focused not only just on moving students forward when they're ready, but also deepening their learning and making sure they have deep transfer of their knowledge before we

015move them forward in that path as well. You can see from our mission statement some of the most important themes that we talked about when we opened up our school, and they continue to be the focuses of everything we do, are empowering students to be those critical thinkers and learners and risk-takers in the world. We know that the world that our kids are going to face when they leave us is an unpredictable world that is ever-changing, and so getting them ready for that is one of our top goals. Asante has the same challenges that every school in our district state and county have faced during the past two years But we also have our own unique opportunities to overcome so looking forward at a few of those obviously one of our top Areas is our

016student growth numbers, so you saw the numbers We know you've seen the projections on where we're supposed to go in the next few years And we know that student mobility or students moving from school to school within a school year or moving in Multiple schools which we are also seeing out by us can lead to higher levels of lower academic achievement in reading and math. It can lead to behavioral problems. It can also lead to a lower student engagement in both our community of parents out there and also our students. So that's something we think about and we talk about every day in our leadership team meetings is how do we welcome new members into our community? How do we make sure to minimize that? And we'll talk about some of those things. Staffing has

017been its own unique challenge. Once again, not unique to Asante. Staffing everywhere is a challenge, but we added 14 certified staff members this year and six classified positions, and over 50% of those happened after July 1. So you can see the unique challenge that's provided. We're very proud to announce tonight we only have one opening currently at this time, so we're very proud of that recruitment effort as well. Our students out at Asante have very diverse needs like all of our schools face, but one of the things we really noticed and when you looked at our easy manner at data from last year it highlighted itself very deeply in our Writing scores and also our math scores across from all of our middle grades But our kids really are not learning effectively when we're teaching

018WHOLE GROUP INSTRUCTION, I DO, WE DO, YOU DO, THE TYPICAL LEARNING MODEL. ONE OF THE THINGS WE'RE GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT LATER ON IS HOW WE'VE DECIDED TO TACKLE THAT CHALLENGE WITH STATION TEACHING THIS YEAR AND SOME OF OUR RESULTS ALREADY FROM THIS YEAR HAVE BEEN VERY PROMISING AS WE MOVE FORWARD. We are also looking at those expeditionary units of study so that's really how we're going to get our kids to be able to take with their learning day to day and lessons and Basically transfer that to unpredictable more real-world experiences and so our teachers are in the process of building project based design units that are Structured around the design thinking model and we're very excited about where that will take our kids as well Like all schools we have some amazing celebrations

019I'm so proud of some of the things that are up here just to talk to you about tonight The first one is our new student program so one of the things we met on as a leadership team and we talked about if we're gonna keep getting all these new kids and they are just coming in droves they come at certain times of the year but then we also get one to two to three to five to sometimes 20 in a week and so we have a new student program it begins went upon enrollment so all of our parents When they come in to enroll their kids, get a welcome packet from us. It has a letter that's crafted that comes from me that explains our school and opportunities and ways they can get involved. There's

020actually a letter that goes to students that's uniquely to them to try to get them also engaged in knowing about their school. They get some cute little trinkets to get them pumped up about becoming a ranger because we think that's pretty special. And then within the first two days of them attending our school, they get to sit down one-on-one with a staff member. It's generally our social worker is one of them. people that do it but they do we do a student interview and we want to find out from the kids like what did you love about your last school what do you really hope what are your goals for this year what do you really want to work on what are you interested in joining and then we can sit and match them up

021with the opportunities that we have and also hear voices on new ideas we have to get them involved so that's been really helpful and then that's emailed out to all staff that has that student so they can know right away We also assign them a student buddy. So every student that enters gets a mentor student that's assigned to them to help them through those first challenging days of, well, I have someone to sit with. Well, I know where it's going to be. And then we also look at academic screening. So we want to get that information as quickly as possible and exactly where our kids are. And our teachers are able to target that then with the station teaching model that we're going to talk about. Our next area of success is our clubs and

022student activities. We have grown so many opportunities for our kids since we opened. With a new full-time music and art teacher, we now are able to offer a full-time choir. We have new art clubs. We have greater participation in our arts program. We have also added some athletic opportunities, including Pickleball, which we're launching right after fall break. And I'm a proud co-sponsor of Pickleball, so I'm really excited to actually get to run a club and activity myself. and a walk it and talk it program, which the kids are all abuzz about. We have over 25 different opportunities this year offered to our kids to get involved, and we're very, very proud of that accomplishment. Academic success guides, one of the things we talked about last year is we are getting kids from out of state,

023but we're also getting kids from other areas of Arizona. So we developed academic success guides for our parents. It really walks them through what their students will be expected to learn in that grade, and then provides them also opportunities of way they can help at home, easy things you can do at home. And so that includes another welcome letter, and that is something that we give out at conferences at the beginning of the year and when they enroll newly into our school. And then our teachers have really done a deep dive into their standards, looking at teacher clarity plans, so developing not just objectives for kids, but learning intentions and success criteria that students can self-assess exactly what they know and exactly what they're still learning in that area, which has been very, very important.

024It was a part of our amazing acceleration summit that... We had over 20 staff members volunteer about three hours of their time last year to literally look at our data and to say, where do we want to go next? Where are we going to make the most gains for our students and how can we help? And so some of the things we're going to talk about in our next steps are the things that we're doing now. So as I mentioned before, we're doing station teaching. Everything in ELA and math is 80% of the lesson or more is in station teaching where kids are sitting in a small group with a teacher. whether you're the high students, the low students, or the middle of the road students, everyone is coming through to get that small group

025instruction, which makes it more tailored to exactly what their needs are to help them reach that success. And we've seen amazing growth already on our unit assessments and on our first quarter benchmarks. So we're very excited about that. We also, as I mentioned before in our data, really needed to take a deep look at writing. So this year we developed our own quarterly writing benchmark assessments that kids are taking. They have their own kid-friendly rubrics that we have for them to be able to go back in and self-assess their writing. And then we're keeping all that information in data binders that they're going to carry from year to year with them so they'll have writing samples to compare how they're growing and learning. We've already talked about the great expansion of our athletics and arts

026and amazing club opportunities, but we continue to survey our kids and look for the things they're interested because who in the world would have thought 10 years ago we would have a club called anime on our campus, but that is what our kids are interested in, so that is what we are offering. And then just as we mentioned before, one of the things we feel is very important at Asante is getting our community involved and making them feel like it's a place they want to walk into and they want to be at. And so we're expanding our events this year to include an Imagine, Create, Learn, and Design evening for parents, a literacy night that we've been having since we started but is expanding every year. And I welcome you to come join us at

027two of our upcoming events. our wonderful Trunk or Treat, which is going to be on October 30th, and our Turkey Trot on November 22nd. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and would be happy to answer any questions you might have at this time. I like the idea of the academic success guide, especially for new students, because you're not only communicating to students, hey, you're welcome here, but you're also communicating to parents, hey, so it's kind of a partnership. This is what we expect from you. This is what you can expect from us. I think that's great. And I'm super intrigued by your station teaching. Can you kind of elaborate a little more? That just sounds cool. Yeah, absolutely. So we have various teachers doing in various ways. I'll brag on a couple of

028them right now. If they're watching at home, they can be proud. We have such amazing things going on. I invite you to come out. But like in our eighth grade ELA Miss Borland's class, all of her kids have actually a PlayStation that they run through in the course of a week to two weeks on a unit. And in each area of the PlayStation, they have their learning and success criteria and the activities they'll be doing. They make appointments with her, and then they also have mandatory small group. instruction time they come through. So she runs that very effectively with both her high school English kids that are also enrolled with her eighth grade. And you can see just the amazing growth on both sides of that. It's just absolutely amazing to watch. And that's what

029you kind of see. Then we have others that it looks more like a traditional, more center-y type thing, but the centers are very different. So in traditional centers, kids would go do an activity. In our station teaching, there's a standard, a purpose for each of their centers. they go through and then they meet with the teacher as one of those stations. And then the teacher can really catch, yep, Johnny's getting it right away and if he's ready to go, okay, you're great, you go ahead and move back and here's your extension. Or if they see, oh wait, you're not quite catching this, they can hold it back and hold them back for more scaffolded instruction. So, no problem. Sounds like you have a lot of exciting things. I really like the new student program to

030get to, I mean, not only do you get to know them a bit to kind of set them up for success, but then it just builds that connection and makes them feel comfortable. And then assigning the buddy, I mean, because there's nothing worse than a first day of school and knowing you're not going to know anybody, who you're going to sit with at lunch, that's just completely taken right off their little emotional plate and they don't have to worry about somebody right there with them. So that's wonderful. And then I always love to hear about... the small group activities, I guess, or small group instruction that happens in classes, especially, you had mentioned, even for the kids that are scoring on the higher end, because I think sometimes I always worry about those kids because

031they sometimes are like, well, they're doing well. We have so much work to do with these other students that they're just... they maybe still continue to do well, but they don't grow. And I think everybody deserves an opportunity to grow. So the fact that you're also working with those students as well, that's just wonderful. And then also the project-based learning. I've always liked that because it makes it relevant to their world and sounds wonderful. I definitely, you're on my list to get out. And I haven't been out there in forever, not even since it's been Asante, actually. So I'm looking forward to it. Well, come on out anytime. We'd love to have you. Thank you. It's a great place to be. I just have one because everybody else may have their questions, but could you

032talk a little bit more about the walk it, talk it? Yes, so the Wocket Talk It is actually, there's a really great description of it on our website. I wish I had it in front of me because we have two amazing kindergarten teachers who actually developed it. And it's more for older kids, to be honest with you. But it's basically a chance for kids who want to just come and get some physical activity, but also get a chance to make new friends and kind of cross grade levels and things like that. So they have a really great, it's something about Waka Waka, come and join your friends. It's really... It's really great to see their energy. We just have some amazing staff. Thank you. Is that something that Mr. Hicks can learn? Yes, I think

033he could totally come to walk it and talk it. Awesome. Cool. And if you want to come see what a horrible pickleball instructor I am, that will be Thursdays running from after break until winter break. So we'll see. I do have help. I'm not very good at pickleball, but it is a passion. I love coming out to Asante, and the fact that it's been open for two years now, it just totally blows my mind. And the fact that you have, what was that, 795 students now, and that is just truly remarkable. So keep doing the great things that you do out there. I've worked with you. past experience with my child and You've always been a great influence. And so I know if I can still remember from those years ago. I know those kids

034are going to be getting Exceptional work from you. So I really keep it going and I yeah, like I said, I hope to stand in front of you with 1100 next year That's my goal But then we'll like try to hold it there for a while Thank you so much. Oh, sorry. I had something. Sorry. I'm so sorry. No, you're okay. I just wanted to say that I'm so impressed that you're keeping up with your staffing with all of the growth that you have and all of the people moving into your area. That is very impressive. And I also really liked the fact that you had the binders for the students that can grow with them through the years and so that they can look and see how much they've really grown in their writing.

035So I just appreciate that. And as Tracy mentioned, I'm also a parent of someone that you've been a principal for. So I just think that that staffing situation that you have, I think that is really a testament to your leadership. And I thank you for that. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Dr. Pauline, would you like to introduce our next school? Madam President, members of the governing board, Dr. Kellis, and members of the cabinet. Dr. Poling is not throwing his voice. It's my voice. And we would like to welcome this evening the proud principal of Surprise Elementary School, Carrie Burns, to provide a school report for Surprise Elementary School. Good evening. Madam President and the board. I am Carrie Burns. I am the principal at Surprise Elementary. I'm happy that this is my 10th

036year as principal over there, 12 years at the school. So I do have a really great connection with my families and with my teachers. And it's really exciting to see my school grow. And now we have students from my first year that are enrolling their preschoolers onto our campus. And it's really, really exciting. So our enrollment currently is 758 with about 42 preschoolers. I like to include them because it's fun to go into their classrooms. Our school colors have changed kind of over the years. We used to be orange and brown. We would have the bright orange uniforms out there, but they have changed to goldenrod, brown, and black, which our cheerleaders very much appreciate not having the bright orange but more of a gold. Our mascot is a cub, and our signature program is

037our science and technology. And we do offer an innovative atmosphere where leadership and student achievement promote a surprise strong culture. And that surprise strong culture really focuses on the whole student. And we've had that focus for our students for the past 10 years, making sure that our students are constantly understanding how they are doing academically and tracking their progress. And we'll talk about that a little bit in just a moment. All right, some opportunities that we have for growth. Our passing rate overall is still below 50% where we would want it to be. We do have gaps in learning, especially in our younger grades. That's where we currently see our biggest gaps. We do have some second graders who last time they were really in school was up until March of kindergarten. So they did

038not engage in the first grade. And so having a... what a kindergartner is doing in March to what our second grader is doing in August is vastly different. And so we do have some big gaps that we are needing to work on. And they're really about reengaging our families. And I know that's a, all the schools are focusing on that, trying to reengage our families academically as well as being involved in our social events. But we really want them to not only come for the kids singing and those activities, we really want them to come to be involved academics as well. Some celebrations we have, although we are below 50%, we have increased proficiency in both math and reading in our upper grades over this past year. We have more than 50% of our students

039receiving high growth in reading and math, and that includes our students who were minimally proficient. proficient, highly proficient, all of our students were receiving, more than 50% of our students were receiving high growth. And then for ELA, we had the lowest percentage of students receiving low growth. And I know that's something that I heard earlier, that we really want to make sure those high kids are still growing and it's not just our low kids. And our data showed that our high students are still growing and we have a lot of high growth. So our focus for the year is to maintain that growth. So as we all know, when you start running, if you can maintain that mile pace, but you've got to maintain it for going on and going on, and it does get

040exhausting. But our focus is on maintaining that growth. And we do that by looking at universal design learning, and that's lesson planning. We want to make sure that our teachers are intentional on how they ask questions, that they're looking at their DOK levels, that they are... planning ahead, making sure they are standards focused, and they do that through their universal design learning. And then we are having academic conversations. One of the biggest things we notice is that our For the past at least ten years our kinder data as they enroll has been lower and lower and lower each and every year And so our students come to us with a lot of vocabulary gaps Sometimes the first time they hold a book is in our classrooms And so we really need to make sure that

041they're having conversations with one another they're having academic conversations They're utilizing that vocabulary so they can build that vocabulary So we really focus on building that academic vocabulary in our classrooms. We do that in our younger grades by putting sentence stems together so students can start, I agree with you because, I disagree with you because. That just increases their vocabulary, allows students to hear. Some of our ELL students, allows them to hear what the sentence should be sounding like. So we do have a lot of structures in place for our students to be able to start building that language. Any questions? I talk fast. It was really eye-opening to hear you put in perspective that your second graders today, I mean, really haven't had a traditional, like, school-type structured feel since kindergarten. And so thinking

042of a kindergartner in second grade, that really is eye-opening and puts things in perspective. My only question as you were speaking and then referencing your passing rate being below 50 was you know now that you recognize that like what interventions are you putting in place, but it sounds like you've identified that a big piece of it is language and that vocabulary piece and then how you've already explained, you're trying to incorporate that into conversations and how you begin sentences and things like that. So that's great that you're able to kind of, you've reflected on that and already implemented some of it. Is there anything else in particular that you're proud of in regard to specific interventions that you think are going to be really effective in increasing that passing rate? Yeah, so our multi-tiered system

043of support has been established at our school, which I think is the reason why we're getting such high growth. Eventually... The hope is that all of that growth is going to then tip over to we have more kids passing because the kids keep growing more and more in comparison to their peers. It's like that game where you put a token in and it starts building up. Eventually, all those tokens are going to fall over. And that's what we're looking at. How we do that is by drilling down to student data. So today we had our benchmark conversations, the most recent benchmark. We're drilling it down to students. We're making our tier two. that we have across the board, K-8. We have it every day, well, Tuesday through Friday. Our K-4 has it on Mondays as

044well. That is a time that all of our teachers are involved in polling groups. That is important to us because... nothing else happens during that time, no matter what. So our tier two time is a time that we have for all of our teachers. We focus on reading and math. Some grade levels have a time specific for reading and a time specific for math. Some of them decide to do, we're gonna do two weeks of reading and then we're gonna look at two weeks of math. So it really does depend on the grade level. Some of our departmentalized grades do it that way, but our younger grades, it is all about reading. And then we have our tier three. So I'm lucky enough to have... a total of four reading interventionists. And their biggest thing

045this year that they've been seeing is our number of first grade groups and second grade tier three groups has skyrocketed for the exact reasons that I just talked about. Some of our first graders didn't attend kindergarten, and so this is their first time where they're still learning letters. They're learning how to write letters. the pacing of our tier one program, you know, it's expecting them students to come with that. So we have a lot of interventions that we're putting in place for these kids. And so we, all of our interventions are really focusing on our younger kids to make sure that even though I won't see the, the benefit of a, on easy merit or eight, um, whatever Pearson's calling it. I don't remember at the moment. I won't see the benefit of all of

046that hard work for a couple of years, but at least I know that when those kids get to third grade, we're going to have, thrown everything and the kitchen sink at the tier three programs. So we will eventually see that program. Sometimes that's, I think, the most frustrating part is you do all of this work, especially in our K-3 interventions, but you don't always see the benefit of on AZ merit. You see it on DIBELS, and you see it on 95%, but you don't always see that reflection on AZ merit. So for our AZ merit grades, we really do focus on drilling it down to students, looking at student data, having our students know how they're doing. That's been consistent over the years. I'm lucky enough to have more than 70% of my teachers have

047been with me for five years or more. We typically have very low turnover. And some of my teachers that leave me, I mean... There are now assistant principals or instructional coaches or data specialists. I've been there for 12 years. My first assistant principal is now a principal of Red River View. She was with me for four years. My current AP has been with me for six years. So I think that consistency in leadership helps our teachers know this is the expectation. A lot of my teachers have been with us for a number of years, and I think that's the reason why we are seeing the growth. And we just have to maintain it so that eventually those kids are going to start passing. Sounds good. Who's your psychologist now? Erin. It's still Erin? Yeah. I

048lost her for a couple of years, but I got her back. Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Well, that's a credit to you as far as teachers and then assistant principals, and there ended up being a principal elsewhere. So I believe you were a Rodell aspiring principal. So congratulations still with that. And I was writing notes down. You were talking about incoming kinders each year. It keeps getting a little bit lower and lower. So you have 42 pre-K right now. Is there anything that you're focusing on with those pre-Ks to have a greater impact on them? Right, so um there we were lucky enough to be selected by the ESS department to participate in this program called leap Bailey same letters Our team was selected because of the consistency we have in staffing. So you know the

049training that you're going to be putting in, those staff are more than likely going to be staying there to be able to implement that program year after year. So we really do look at what they're doing in the preschool classroom. But a lot of preschool also is learning and playing. And one of the things we recognized this year that some of our kindergartners haven't been able to play at a playground for a little bit. And so they're learning to play on a playground, which is not something you ever think about. But last year, some of our families didn't take their kindergartners to a playground because they didn't feel safe. And so we're having to. This is what safe play looks like. And so that's one of the biggest things in preschool. It's all about that,

050you know, building a community. How do we share with our friends? And but also in embedding instruction. But embedding instruction in kindergarten or in preschool looks a lot different because it's definitely a lot of really small chunks because their attention span is very, very small. Regarding those kindergartners and their knowledge being leveled so low. And I know prior to COVID, you were still seeing that same thing. What about behavior? Do you see an increase in behavior problems in the kindergarten, especially like your second graders who didn't get to first grade? I mean, in that K-4 group? We definitely do. There was a lot. We can see the students that... maybe did not have the classroom environment last year. And so their understanding of attending to a task and not being able to do what they

051want when they want is probably the hardest part. And maybe what I'd say like a meltdown looks like at home. You know, parents can, you know, you're going to time out around putting in your room. We don't have that. And a parent typically only has maybe like one or two other kids that they're trying to attend to. we have 20, you know, so if a student is having a moment where they are not at their best, we've got to make sure we're keeping the rest of the kids safe. We've got to make sure that we're making sure that kid has safety plans in place or we have the right people being able to de-escalate that student so that we can get them back into the classroom safely. So we have seen a huge uptick in

052our number of... aggressive behaviors in our younger grades. I like to hear that you are teaching your kindergartners and preschoolers how to play. Academics are super important, but they're kids. They need to learn how to play too. They need to run. They need to smile. They need to laugh. You know, I think there's a time and place for rigorous academics, but one thing I see with some schools and some districts is it's like they suck all of that away. in order to get higher scores, to get kindergarteners reading in a second grade level or this and that. And, you know, there are some kindergartners who are capable of that, but they just need to play. So I love that, that you're just letting them be kids and teaching them how to play because that's such

053a foundation. So teaches them how to problem-solve too. Absolutely. When they can't get a swing set when they want it, it's asking them, so what are you going to do? Let's go look at everything else. And sometimes they have a hard time seeing beyond the swing set. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And that concludes our school report for the evening, Dr. Kellis. Next, moving to item G3, Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. Ken Hicks will present this information. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Callas, colleagues, and community members. I am pleased to present the fiscal year 2021 override report. Outside of the requirement, statutory requirement, that we make this presentation, it is a great time just to thank our community.

054for their support in the school district with through the override so thank you very much to our community as i mentioned we're required to present sometime between september 1st and october 30th at any public meeting an update on the override it is go the law actually goes bigger for all overrides and for bonds we do not have a capital override and we do not have a bond which does have additional requirements of how and what we report the override does not have those but just to provide a little context for our community and for the governing board our override history updated this from last year the override failing in 14 and then passing in 15 and then again passing last november and it was a continuation it's probably a great time to remind everybody it

055was a continuation either staff parents community members and the last Six months especially at the beginning of the year during some transportation questions. I was fielding from parents The number one comment or not number one, but a common comment was well, we voted for the override word all that extra money go And just it's a good time just to remind everybody it was a continuation. It was not a new It was just to continue the same programs. And so these were the previous programs and it continues. We try to provide a little bit additional information on the tax rate impact. for our community members. But then here is the breakdown of the dollars in each of those groups. The retaining highly qualified staff members, the class size reduction, reading and math, music, art, TV, music,

056art, and athletics, and then returning to full-day kindergarten. And so that is the breakdown of how the funds were allocated. And I'll stand for any questions. I'll start with my first question. So in the override history, you said it's just a continuation, but it looks like we spent $18.86 million in November 2016 and 2017, and then we spent, or no, not we spent, we gained $18.86 million 2016-2017, but then we gained $21.18 million. If it's just a continuation, how did we end up with more money? Great question. Madam President, members of the board, it is a percentage. So it is a 15% of the RCL. And so you look and you calculate out what the revenue control limit is and multiply it by 15%. Overrides do use prior year funding. So most of the time

057everything is current year funding. They use prior year funding to make the calculation. And so you calculate it on the 15%, which is what our voters approved. Thank you very much. And then I do have another question. As far as keeping class sizes manageable, how are we defining manageable? Madam President, members of the board, that's a great question. And if we remember back to... putting the committee together and we tried to change this. I don't know if people remember or I remember because I was leading the committee. But to change off of going forward into something different means that we have to identify what we're not going to fund anymore if it fails. And it was very difficult at that problem to do that. So this is really just using historical information. And so to

058keep class size manageable, you could look at it in the opposite way. If the override were to fail or you take it away, what would be happening? So we would be increasing our class sizes. We would lose probably class size reduction probably 136 less teachers is what we'd have. Highly qualified teachers means that everybody would be making 3 percent less. All the teachers would take a 3 percent pay cut. if you take away and so it was a struggle with the committee as they're saying hey let's move something else in you move something else in something else something has to go out how and what that is and the potential if it fails what that means they struggled with that a lot as well okay because I see a lot of our classrooms still have

059like 30 kids to a class and if you're a high school teacher and you got 30 kids times six classes That doesn't seem very manageable. Yeah, madam president members of the board Really it would be we'd be readdressing our MOU and our class size guidelines and our staffing ratios and how we set those if We did not have the override Okay, because I feel like one of the big points one of the big selling points is you say smaller class sizes smaller class sizes, but In my experience in the district, all my class sizes got bigger, none of them got smaller. So how are we justifying the community paying more taxes if we're not actually reducing class size? Madam President, Ms. Jaffa, if I could take a stab at it. So back when the override

060was initially passed, and I don't know, Ken, when the first time the override was passed. long time ago that there was some of these descriptions were put on there and each time it came up for renewal I'm pretty sure these same categories were just carried forward. So the the memorandum with the teachers association there's the book that has all the agreements. One of those agreements is class sizes. And so it's the teacher to student ratio at the various grade bands. So the primary grades it's lower in the 20s. Middle school it's a little bit higher around 30. High school it's a little bit higher 32. So we have maintained that same class size student to teacher ratio on average. If you were at a high school you probably saw that an AP calc. class had

061fewer students than the freshman Spanish class because when you are creating a schedule you can't put the exact same number of students in every single class. It may be that only 25 students enroll in AP Spanish. So you can either not offer that class because there weren't 32 who enrolled in it or you offer it. So now you have one class with 25. That means another class has to have 32 or 33 or 34. So as you look across the board you typically you see your activity based classes PE band. Some of those have much higher numbers and we try and keep the core classes as low as possible. Understanding also that there are those electives classes that if not enough students enroll they're canceled. Because you just can't afford to have 15 students in

062a class. Now somebody from back east might think, well, why not? That sounds perfect. Sounds great. Sounds great. And the reality is that we just don't have the funding to have 15 students. So every time we renew an M&O override, we are maintaining the same class sizes on average. That student to teacher ratio that is in the agreement. If we were to lower it, it would cost more money to lower it. We haven't ever asked for more than the 15%. But it's always something that we would aspire to do. So basically what you're saying is the teachers' union recommends the class size ratio and we'd have to find some money if we wanted to reduce those class sizes? Yes, and kind of. So the teachers' union, we don't have a teachers' union. We work collaboratively

063with teachers to create the agreement, but we look at what is reasonable and again this is many many years old. If we were to revise it up or down we could save millions of dollars by adding more students to a class or we could expend more dollars if we reduce it per class, but yes that is correct. Well, that might be a good conversation to has because I feel like we have a lot of money at our disposal I just feel like maybe we can move some around Maybe that's a different conversation though, but thank you. You're welcome. Well, I wonder though kind of with that And I don't remember now. In our pamphlets, did we say class size reduction or did we say maintaining current class sizes or keeping class sizes manageable? Madam President,

064members of the board, keeping class sizes manageable. That's what was in the document? Okay. Because I was going to say that if we're maintaining, we're not really reducing the class size. We're just maintaining. I think what's important to note is that with the phrase keep class sizes manageable, we will have some classrooms that are not manageable and then some that are very manageable and it's an average. I mean, if you look at our high schools with their band classes, there's not 30 kids in there and there's 60 plus in those classes in a single class. And that is a lot to ask of any. educator in my opinion and I don't think that it would be reasonable or manageable but that's just me. Madam President it's manageable is certainly a perceptual term. Right. Talking with

065band teachers and I have had that conversation with band teachers they don't want to lose a single student. They would prefer the 60 so they could have their whole band together and be able to rehearse together rather than have the sectionals separately. That being said they would love to have time with their sectionals in different periods of the day so that they could then at some point bring them all together. But yes as I mentioned our activity based classes generally have much higher class sizes. Well, even our classrooms have larger class sizes, too. They usually end up with anywhere from like 27 to 30 students, and it's really difficult because as we're seeing, a lot of kids missed out on a lot of learning just by our best efforts. you know, parents try to manage

066the best they can. That just makes it more difficult for our teachers when you've got a few kids up here, you've got some kids here, and you've got kids down here, but you've got a classroom of 30, and it just makes it more difficult to really make sure that all of those children are learning at the appropriate level and making sure that they're on grade level with their math and their reading. Madam President, Ms. Jaffa, again you're correct. We would love to be able to have class sizes of 20 to 25 across the board. Dr. Crotto still almost daily checks every single grade, every class, every day, and has a spreadsheet that has red and yellow and green and depending on a specific grade at a specific school where they are at on that agreed

067agreed upon class ratio. And we have added teachers this year where the class sizes have exceeded when on average across. So sometimes it's a matter of well this class fifth grade class has 32 this one has 25. The school itself needs to do some balancing. and move some students so that they're all across the board or more balanced. But if on average all the classes are exceeding and have gone over and above we have added additional supports with the classroom aid or in several cases we have actually split classes and hired more teachers. And so if you have a we'll just take an example if you have two classes and they're both at 30. We'll say it's second grade. So if you split those into three classes they went from 30 to 20. So now

068you have three classes of 20. That school fared pretty well. And we we do have those situations where we have added teachers and there's a lot of classes that have very manageable class sizes. But then there are those who are right on the threshold. and it doesn't justify adding the teacher yet. Manageable. Because we had just this year a teacher speak of her class sizes. So is that an instance then when we shuffled or added teachers? Because I just want to make sure that... kind of what was just said. We're doing good right by our voters and trying to understand is this an issue where we need to shuffle more or is this an issue of an MOU situation where it's more that contract that we have with the Teachers Association that's more the holdup

069or why we're seeing some class sizes a lot bigger or like I said, the one teacher that came and expressed concern about numbers. Madam President, Member Pritchard, I think it's a combination of everything you just said. Again, we try to, I have to work with Mr. Hicks in balancing a budget, so where are we with budget and loss, and it's also over a bigger picture of enrollment in the district, although we may be high in one area, we can be losing a lot of kids in another area, so it's a balanced situation with all that. Like Dr. Kellis said, we... Monitor it daily. We have discussions about it every week about where we're at with class sizes and the resources that we can offer to our schools. And I'm in conversation with a lot of

070principals every week about that. So I think it's a combination of everything you said as far as. Where where the challenges are if that's what you're asking? I don't know if I answered that or not We did look into that situation that the teacher asked about the kind of absolutely that's been taken care of. Okay Madam president members of the board if I could also share we determine our staffing in the spring of the year prior so that we can hire the teachers and Last year the board may recall that we were down about 600 kindergartners total over a thousand students. So if we were to look at the enrollment at the time when we were doing the staffing, then we would say we're going to hire enough teachers for the number of students we

071have in hand right now. And then as students started reappearing that had disappeared, then we started adding the additional teachers and splitting and adding aides and... So it's been an interesting year besides. A question for Mr. Hicks. This expenditure analysis, is this published to our website? Madam President, members of the board, it's attached to the governing board agenda item, but we could now start publishing this. No, I didn't know from past years had it been published to our website. I don't recall that it was. Yeah it was. The override report. Right. Madam President members of the board we do it every year. I don't recall that we have it on a separate Web site publishing it. We could definitely look at adding that to our financial transparency page that we put on there. Thank you.

072I know that it's not. requirement for the override report but I don't know if you have it off the top of your head or if you can maybe follow up but I would like the line item that reads for reading and math music art and athletics I would like to see the breakdown of those items the totals madam president members board I do not have that but I will find that out and send it to the board okay thank you And then can I ask what kind of classroom resources are we purchasing? What extra things are we purchasing for our reading and our math? Madam President, members of the board, we'll have to ask over there. This is all people. This is all people. The override does not. So if you want additional resources question,

073we'll have to ask the ed services side of the house. Okay, because it's it clearly says classroom resources for reading and math. I was just kind of curious I believe this is all people but I'll double-check it's in there Perhaps paras or I'll have to I do not believe but let me okay. I don't want to make Statements just guessing right now. So let me confer with the experts and get a report back to the board. Thank you I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this, but I just wanted to Ask for clarity. Back to the class sizes being manageable. Worst case scenario, if we had a crazy overpopulation in an area, is there a maximum number of students that we can have in one classroom legally? Even if we had all the

074resources available like teachers and paras, is there a max number of children? Fire marshal has fire code that would limit the number of students in any any room So that would depend on the capacity for that room That would be the legal capacity that you were asking about and we are nowhere near that legal capacity for the fire marshal to have an issue Madam President I know Dysart school has come anywhere close to reaching the fire marshals legal capacity for Occupancy in our classrooms. Thank you. That being said we would love to have smaller classrooms But we have capacity. Thank you very much. It's good to know. I was about like, can we buy buses with that? No. Any other questions for Mr. Hicks? Sorry. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right,

075moving to item G4, Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. Each month, administration strives to provide the board with essential data regarding student performance. And this evening, we have Amy Hartchin, who will be presenting the latest round of results from our students. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board and cabinet. All right, so I'm here to review our spring testing data from April, well, mostly April of 2021. Just to kind of give everybody an overview, grades three through eight took the AZM2 in ELA and math. Grade 10 took the AZM2 in ELA and math. Grade 10 took an integrated math test. It was the one and only time we gave the integrated math test because of the cancellation in 2020. So that was, like I said, the

076one and only time we gave that test. It was a combination of standards taught from Algebra 1, 2, and Geometry. Our 11th graders took ACT. I apologize it should say grades 5 8 and 11 took the AZ Psi field test of course we are in the process of adopting we've adopted new science standards we're getting ready this spring will be the first time we take the actual science test we get we did the field test last year but we received no data back or information about how our students perform it is just giving the company information on items that are for use on that test So first we're gonna look at elementary data. Across the state and across obviously nationwide, nationwide averages obviously dipped in ELA and math, both in Arizona and nationwide. There were

077bigger drops in math than ELA and you'll see our data follows very similar trends. As a district, we went down about 5% in reading. Note that there is a difference in the test. Previously it was called AZMERIT, then it switched to AZM2. Our standards stayed the same, but vendors switched, a little bit of change, but overall the blueprint of the test did not change. We went, every campus had a small dip, some dips very, very small, some a little bit bigger. Obviously impact on quarantines, teachers being out for quarantine, students not engaging in school. I think one thing we should be really proud of as a campus or as a district is that We tested over 96% of our students statewide that average was 85% So we had large participation in our state test and

078we did a really good job Campuses did a great job of even kids who were doing online getting them to come in and test so of all eligible students to test obviously grades three and then 10 and 11, we were above 90, almost 96%. So I think that's a really good tribute compared to state average. So like I said, you can see our district average was above the state average and actually grew a little bit more this time than previously when we gave that test back in 18-19. And then for math, similar, you can see we actually are, again, 2% above the state average. Dips in math statewide were 11%, and we went down about 9%, so our average was a little bit less than the state average. And for those that say NA, obviously

079Freedom Traditional and Asante didn't test in 18-19. Freedom was still Parkview, and Asante hadn't opened, reopened at that point. So for the high schools, we have two sets of data. We're gonna look at this evening The first is that 10th grade assessment the very last time we gave the AZM to the one and only time in math Previous when you're looking at these data pieces remember that back in AZ merit days for the high school They were end of course exams. So we had actually tested in ninth tenth and eleventh grade We have provided you with the tenth grade because that was on the end of course exam The AZM2 data from 2021 actually covers that grade band standards of ninth and 10th grade. For ELA, it's very comparable. The standards are actually in a

080nine, 10 band. So the information is the standards they learn in ninth and 10th grade complement and grow on each other. So you can see we had growth in several of the schools or very small drops in most places. So overall, our high schools actually grew in... the spring AZM too and were above the state average. So great testament to the high schools and their work in still persevering last year with everything going on. For math, unfortunately, it is not the same message. We had, I've provided you with the EOC, the end of course exam from 2019. However, it was just a straight geometry test. The 2021 test was that integrated test. It was about 60% algebra and about 40% geometry standards, and it covered... Both two years of those courses and you can see

081on the state average dropped about 11% and we dropped about 10% so we were pretty close in line to a Regression similar to what the state and national averages saw And then the other one, you guys, we shared this during our last board presentation, our ACT results. This time I've only included those two, the 2018, which is the last time that we gave ACT to all students. And then 2021, we gave it to all of our juniors as... their state test and it will be the state test moving forward. So you can see we had good composite growth. Obviously the ACT is on a very different scaling. It goes on an overall score of a scale of one to 36. So national average is about 20. So our goal is obviously to get closer to

082that national average as we keep giving this and become more familiar with it. We are confident that will happen. But this was the overall composite scores. We're a little bit below the state average, but closed the gap definitely between our 2018 administration and our 2021 administration. These are the categories. So they test English, which represents grammar and usage. So that's the language side of the English course. And then reading, math. Science, this year we will be giving the writing portion, that's part of the state assessment piece, so in addition this year we'll add the writing component to the test. But for this last year you can see some campuses had really great growth. Dysart and Shadow in the English and reading sections had really strong growth. To have more than a point of growth is

083a really, is a big. Big increase and then you can see as an overall our district average increased and we actually out performed the state in the English section this last year and In science or I'm sorry in math. So as you look at these we had great growth as a district as well as Outperforming or being equivalent to the state in all of those subcategories And with that I will answer any questions It's concerning, obviously, the big dips we endured. But, I mean, because we look at them and their numbers, but they're obviously students, so it's very concerning. But the ACT data is amazing, especially under the circumstances. And then the fact that, again, in the pandemic, having 10th grade ELA, having growth in all but one of our high schools, that's also impressive.

084So there is some good news in there. It's too bad we saw that decrease. And I think celebration in terms of some of the K-8s is that although overall as a school maybe their average dropped, there were some grade levels that had really great growth that they were able to celebrate within grade levels and those types of things. So maybe one grade level dipped, but another had great growth so that there might have been a net negative. and their overall scores, but there were some really good celebrations that schools were able to have. And you've heard several schools talk about how much growth their kids had, which obviously is a completely different factor than their proficiency, but you know, it's still to show great growth during the pandemic is another accomplishment. Yeah. Thank you. So

085are they doing the AZM2 again this year for sophomores? No. So the third through eighth graders will take a new test, same benchmark or same blueprints as before, same state standards, but it will be called the AASA. Arizona's assessment, no, Arizona's AASA. Arizona's. Giant test. Yes. Standards assessment. Arizona's academic standards assessment. Sorry. I was missing a letter there. So that'll be third through eighth grade. And then high school will now ninth graders will take the aspire. It's a pre ACT type test and the 11th graders will take the ACT and then the juniors will take the science exam and fifth and eighth grade will take the science exam. And you're able to keep all this straight. I'm trying. Learning lots. I'm learning lots K-3. That was really where I spent lots of time picking Adriel's

086brain on understanding. Dibbles in 95% group. Well, I also think it's important to point out, like, our 10th graders, they're not taking their tests this year, but... We went from 2018-2019 just taking geometry at the end of their sophomore year to all of a sudden having to do a geometry test that was 60% algebra. And isn't it algebra one's a freshman class, right? And then geometry sophomore? Okay. Yep. So last year when we benchmarked our sophomores, we incorporated algebra items so that we were able to see where those learning pieces were as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next we have item G5. Dr. Kellis? Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. Dr. Pulling will present this item. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Kellis, cabinet,

087and community. It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Corey Montano, Director of Exceptional Student Services, and Karen Winterstein, Director of Student Services, to talk about some proposed new K-8 student discipline and learning loss supports. Good evening, Madam President, government board members, cabinet members, and members of the audience. This evening we are... It's our pleasure to be here this evening to share with you some information about behavioral learning loss that we've noticed and are trying to address. Also how that ties right into our multi-tiered systems of support and our RTI process that we currently have for academics and adding behavior to that. And then explaining what additional supports for teachers, students, and members of the campus we are proposing for you this evening. So with that, I promise you that we did not speak to Carrie Burns,

088who just laid the foundation for what we're going to be sharing with you this evening. I didn't even have a conversation with her or tell her what we're going to be presenting. But some of the things she said are a testament to what we're going to propose to you this evening. So when we were looking at. the needs for our classroom. Academic needs are being addressed for the learning loss that the students have encountered. but what we've seen is a drastic uptick in the behavioral needs of our students that are impacting the academic learning that our students have available to them in the classroom. So as Ms. Burns had shared, talking about second grade to third grade, how we are second to kinder, when you think about the third graders that are in our classrooms

089today, last year's second grade COVID year, their first grade year, they... experienced three quarters of a year before in March. The end of their year was very atypical. So their last full year in the school system was in kindergarten. So many of the third graders that we have today, they did not have classroom learning environment in second grade and then the end of their first grade. Also, when you think about the fifth graders, so they had three quarters of a year in third grade, so their last full year was in second grade. So what we're seeing is many of the students that are displaying behaviors that are challenging, they really haven't been in a structured classroom environment for several years. And so that's really impacting their ability to maintain and manage. their behaviors, it's also

090affecting the ability of our teachers to teach and the other students to learn. So we have been identifying and trying to address those behavioral needs to make sure that our students are successful in maintaining those classroom expectations and for the ability for our teachers to teach that expected tier one level of support for our students. So when you look at the MTSS model, the Multi-Tier Systems of Support, the triangle is separated into two. One side is the academic and one side is the behavioral. So in tier one, the teacher is providing those universal interventions that preventative and positive, both academic, that classroom-wide expectations. In tier two, those are the ones that the... the students need that tier one, but they need a little bit of extra support to fulfill the expectations of the classroom and

091be able to learn without their behaviors being impacted. And then the top of the pyramid, that 5% or so of the students, that tier three, they need intensive individualized interventions to be successful in the classroom. Unfortunately, for many of our schools, actually all of our schools, that triangle has now turned into more of a rectangle where the tier three has many more students in it. And so the tier one is meeting fewer of the students need. There's more students needing that small group. and those constant redirections and even more so are up at that very top tier that we have never seen before. Sorry, I apologize. We're seeing various needs in the classroom as I mentioned. Tier one is not addressing all of the behavioral outbursts or meltdowns As miss burns had shared and that

092is requiring more of the teachers attention in the classroom setting so when they get to when behaviors escalate to a point where the teacher cannot handle it the additional they're requiring additional support from administrators, from any other staff members that can come in and assist that student so that the teacher can teach and the other students can learn. We are also, the administrators. options are also impacted with the passing of House Bill 2123 that definitely impacts what suspensions can be assigned. It's not that we want to suspend our K-4 kiddos, but administrators under any circumstances as of September 29th, the option to suspend anyone, any student that is under the age of seven has been taken away. The last thing we want to do is suspend a student. However, there are some times in which

093that is an option that in the past was available, even for a short time, so that the teacher could reset, there could be a plan in place for that student upon their return. Additionally, for students that are seven years old up to grade four, There are a very strict set of guidelines that must be put in place before a suspension can even be considered. And again, that is a last resort, but that option has been taken away from our administrators. So at this point, Ms. Montagna is going to continue with the supports. So we've been talking and trying to look at what is in our current model So currently we do have some additional supports that we are able to help the school in the classrooms and the students However, it's much more of an

094itinerant model and they're kind of housed more within the ESS department So currently if you look on the left hand side we have our we do have 20 itinerant ESS behavior technicians and these are folks who are really Going out and helping with our students who have more significant behaviors may or may not be Students who receive special education services more than often they are students who do have special education services. We also have 11 behavior coaches that are itinerant so they cover multiple campuses and so are not immediately available to provide Those classroom level supports if there don't happen to be on the campus where they're needed at that time And then lastly we also have a higher level and higher trained individuals of the behavior analysis Analysts who are able to help with

095doing some of the functional behavior assessments or helping with behavior intervention plans when the classroom and the school-based ones were not sufficient to address the behaviors. What we're proposing is that we're going to work a little smarter and try and get our our support at more of the site level. So we would still like to make sure that we have our highly trained folks working with students, but we would propose that we would actually be reducing the number of ESS behavior technicians that we have that are itinerant and maintaining just eight of those so that we can create a Essentially the same position, but it would be named as a student support technician. So same skills same almost the same job description, but those 20 Student support technicians would be site based so that every

096preschool through fourth grade pre-k through eighth campus and Every middle school has one body already on their campus classified to help immediately support their needs in addition we would allow the eight Sorry, the 11 current behavior coaches that we have to become more site based as well so that they have a singular site to be able to be part of that campus, that culture, and to be able to help implement the plans, create the plans, et cetera. So we would have to increase that from 11 to 19 and then restore our old number from back to four analysts. We've actually increased in schools, we've increased in students, but we had never restored our... staffing back to the four analysts so that there's kind of one with each high school and they're the participating schools. So

097like we said every Pre-K through four, Pre-K through eight would have full-time help that they need to assist the students and their behavioral goals. It will really help the teachers. It's essentially, I think I went backwards. The student support technicians are going to be able to help spend most of their time with the students in the classrooms in a small group or individual basis where they're collecting data and helping to generalize and maintain the skills, the behavioral skills that they'll learn and to employ the strategies that Ms. Burns was explaining we don't necessarily have at the same rate that we were seeing previously. The behavior coaches would be able to focus on taking some of the burden off of the classroom teacher and the site administration that... We are currently trying to teach students behavioral

098skills while doing the academic instruction and other circus acts. And it will actually allow for a higher level of observing the students, modeling the strategies for the teachers, and helping them to get rolling with more of these supports in the classroom level, as well as create some individual student and small group instruction. They would also serve on the site's MTSS RTI team, which we're finding we've kind of been piloting that right now to have them go and help be a part of that problem-solving team. As Karen showed, when we're looking at that pyramid and we're looking at the RTI model, we often kind of focus on the academic side, but there's a whole other component of needs that exist from the behavioral perspective with regard to behaviors that they need to be able to have

099to be successful on the academic side. And then... The role of the behavior analyst would be continued to also be the same where they are serving the higher level of support across multiple campuses, but they're able to do an in-depth analysis. So functional behavior analysis and assessments that help target what the behavior intervention plan needs to include. I think we also included a chart for you, kind of a breakdown of the different positions and kind of the movements. So we're kind of the big picture is that we are recognizing and seeing the great need to help support our classrooms and our students be successful. If they don't have the skills, the behavioral skills that are school readiness skills, they're not going to be able to access their learning. And then when... when they're interrupting their

100disruptive behaviors or preventing the rest of the classroom learning. Now we have a whole classroom losing that instructional time. With that, we'll stand for any questions you might have about this proposed shift. Madam President, members of the board, if I could just interject that we have put this on as an information item this week to allow the conversation and generate questions and allow administration to receive the feedback from the board, but we would be hoping to bring this back at the next board meeting for action. I have a question. Sorry, Tracy. Go ahead. You can go first. No, actually, I was just going to ask, so if we have other things that, because I do have a lot of other questions. So from now to the next time this is going to come, we can

101ask. Okay. That's all I want. Do we have any data on these student behaviors, like what kind of behaviors they're exhibiting, how many students per campus, what grade level? Do we have a breakdown of that? Yes, I madam president member Chapman. Yes, we do when I've spoke with the principals I I get calls Dozens of them on a daily basis as does dr. Montaigne When asked the principal specifically they have anywhere between 25 up to more than 50 students that they are dress addressing and assisting on a daily and weekly basis Okay, do we have like a breakdown of that by like site or grade level? I don't have it with me, but I I do have that I can make that available to you I want to thank you for your sorry. I just

102want to thank you for the presentation I definitely see a need for something and I guess my only concern is that a few of these positions would be Our bulk of the positions would be funded with the ESSER funds but you're not necessarily guaranteed year over year. I don't know. Can you speak to that, Ken? Madam President, members of the board, you are correct. This would fund this through fiscal year 2024, but then the ESSER funds would be going away after that point. So we have two and a half years that it would fund this model. The decision would have to be made at that time of bringing it into M&O or other funds. And if we do, what would have to go out or how would that be funded? But, yes, there is a

103limited time for this. Madam President, if I could just add on to Ken's response that this really shouldn't be a permanent position. We have seen that the last two years have wreaked havoc behaviorally and we need to get back to some very structured routines in the classrooms where students feel safe coming and learning as well as staff. So this with the coaches and the techs, the intent would be that we provide the training to the teachers to be able to have the. tools necessary to manage this but also to start reprogramming the students behaviors so that when the funding goes away in the positions but very likely go away that they are and everybody says we are in the normal. Stop saying we're going to when we get to normal. But hopefully when we return

104to some normalcy that we'll be better prepared. DIRECTOR HARRIS KINZER So would we be spending one hundred thousand dollars a year just for behavior analysts for four more years. That's $400,000. Two more years. Two more years? 24. 24. Wow. Two and a half. Two and change. We're hoping we don't get to have to use this. I mean, so currently we do have three, so it's an increase of just one. And that does include all of the benefits when we look at that. Oh, okay. I was going to say. It's a big salary. Yeah. You eased my anxiety because at first when I was looking over the agenda item, I'm thinking why are we going from, why are we reducing our behavior text? Because I remember, I mean going from 20 to eight freaked me out

105for a second because what I was seeing when I was in that role is that you were losing paras left and right because nobody's going to get. beat or hit or sent to the ER for $12 an hour. And because they weren't trained that way and it just wasn't working out. So I like the fact that you're just shifting. That makes me feel a little bit better, but calling them more, using it more towards the site-based student support tech. So then the ones that you're keeping for ESS. Is that just, I mean, can there ever be any overlap or is it like those are just ESS student assignments? No, so even right now, if we suspect that a student might. have a disability or they need the expertise, we do, we play nicely. We're able

106to help and go where it's needed and we do share. And what we were really doing was protecting eight so that when they do have a student who moves in who has an immediate need because they moved in with a one-on-one and we haven't secured a one-on-one yet, we're able to deploy someone right away so that we're able to meet that student's needs per their IEP right away. But we do also have other students who come in that maybe have never even touched school before and their behaviors are so significant that they're needing some assistance. kind of one-on-one to get adjusted. So it's short term, you know, four to six weeks tops and then we're able to put some things in place and implement and then move on. They're much more itinerant. So we do

107still need that need. But then yeah, putting ones already on the site to help with all of the students is the intent. Which I think too would really ease the concerns of just the site-based staff because normally it's like four to six weeks of data before any behavior team will ever come on a campus. A lot can happen in four to six weeks behavior wise. And so I also love the fact that you're hoping to get one behavior coach per campus because floating one person over six plus schools and going in and saying, see you next week doesn't work. And I think too, with them being on campus. they're going to feel more a part of that team and that culture. And so there's going to be that relationship building rather than this, you know,

108transient staff member just coming and going and then coming in your classroom and saying, try this, this, and this, see you later. And it just didn't feel as supportive, and I don't think it was received as well. So the fact that you'd actually have someone on campus, have these extra supports, I really like this idea. I feel like this is a good way to make staff feel supported. and students really get that intense behavior intervention that some of them need. So I'm excited about it. I'm only concerned about, I would hate to see the funding. I think this is really needed. And I'm hoping Dr. Callas is right, that maybe we get a handle on it and this is just one of those fluke things. But the reality is behavior is always there in some

109fashion. But maybe we wouldn't need it ongoing. But if so, I hope we can just be proactive and with funding to think, okay, how are we going to continue to cover it? Because I think this is an excellent idea. Thank you. I also like the site-based because it allows them to get to know the kids on a regular basis and to get to know the teachers and the staff. How hard to fill are these positions? I mean, we hear about we can't find pairs, we can't find this. So are we talking hard to fill or are we going to be able to move this along? So thank you for the question. We believe that this will actually make them easier to fill. Right now we're filling them, not at the rate that I would like

110to, but one of the biggest drawbacks is that these are folks who are being asked to be on multiple campuses and they don't know what their day is going to look like every day, particularly the behavior text. And so I do believe that they will be able, that we'll be able to get more staff. when they are more school-based because of the very reasons that you were just discussing, but they're gonna be able to be part of the climate and the culture of the campus. They're gonna be embedded in that community. It's a win-win-win, so it's a win for the students because they have more consistency as well as the teachers and the staff themselves. So really, it's just across the board a better situation for everyone, and I do believe it will be easier

111to get folks. We currently have a lot of good, qualified folks who I know will already be anxious to get to find themselves a home. on a campus, but I know that this will help us be able to move forward and get more folks as well. Well, also being site-based and yes, they get to know the kids and yes, they get to know the teachers and the staff. they also get to know the parents. And they'll have that relationship ongoing rather than, well, I'm sorry, I can't see you until next week or in two weeks. They'll have that. If a parent has a concern, they'll have somebody they can talk to right away. Yes. Are these site-based student support techs, though? Are they going to be paid at the same rate of pay that our

112behavior techs are, definitely more than our paras are, because they have that specialized training? Yep. So they would be the same pay rate on the same scale as the ESS behavior techs. Okay. I do have a couple more questions. I think Chrissy kind of already touched on this one. What happens, you know, in a few years when the money runs out? You know, if we don't have enough money, are we going to have to lay off all these positions again? Or maybe, you know, if the need is still there, we could be proactive. Or, you know, maybe our kids will get everything stabilized and then... then that's a different conversation. A couple other questions. What would this look like on a day-to-day basis? So if I've got a site-based, is it a behavior coach or

113a support tech? Both. So you would have a classified position of a, if you are a K through eight campus or a... well really preschool through eight or preschool through fourth, you would have both those individuals full-time on your campus. If you're a middle school, you would have a full-time student support tech, but at the middle school, we would actually have one coach per two schools. So we're just reducing it down to two schools, same thing with high school. But on a typical day, the person might begin with a student that we know has a, a tech might begin with a student who we know has a hard time transitioning from the bus, the car to get into the classroom. They might assist that student while a coach is doing a check-in with a group

114of other students who we know just need. to touch base and ground themselves before they begin school. It might then look like there's a student who had something that occurred the day before and I need to go back and revisit with them and talk about the skill that they didn't show that they needed to practice with them and then have them go back to class. It might then look like me collecting data as a student support tech on an intervention that's in place in a classroom while the coach is giving a lesson on a specific skill. I was trying to think of one to do, you know, even just listening, like actually being able to stop and listen and not. constantly be talking out in class because they don't have those classroom norms yet. So

115that might just be a small little chunk in a window or at any moment and you know on a campus there's that crisis that comes up because that kiddo does have that meltdown or there's a need of more, you know, a more aggressive act and then they're going to be able to help respond. So of course these folks would also can be NCI certified and be prepared to help in those kind of reactive situations. But we are also helping to give some of the things in advance so that it's proactive so that the skills are embedded. So basically, if I've got a kindergartner or a second grader in my classroom throwing chairs and desks, I could call one of those people and they would come address that issue? They would be part of the team

116that would be able to respond and help, yep. And then another question, you kind of mentioned this already. Are these techs and coaches going to be able to work with these kids on buses to eliminate some of these behaviors? So I just to clarify the question they would be able to help arriving and leaving school we have also had the technicians and coaches ride buses if the problem behavior is on the bus and to also help draft and create a plan that would make the student be more successful on buses because as we know moving buses does need to be a safe place and so we have done that we do that now and it would actually increase our capacity to be able to support that. And then so with any data that these behavior

117techs or coaches collect, would that be included with if a student had an IEP or a 504? And then could also help to guide the goals that are needed or any other supports. You mentioned the NCI training. Can we require that certain individuals in those positions carry that certification? We do. It's required now? Yes. Okay. I think this is a good idea. I mean, I know we need these supports. My concern is long-term. A lot of these behaviors that they're experiencing at school are just not dealt with at home, and that's why we are having to deal with it. So my concern is, are we enabling parents? To shirk off some of their duties not all parents, but ever I mean You you know we've got certain parents where you can call them five times

118a day, and they just won't respond I guess that's more like a philosophical question, but At what point are we? enabling parents to Not do their duties. I don't know because With that kind of piggybacking on it reminded me are we because sometimes behavior is communication. They don't know how to articulate the same as their peers and so will we Are speech and language pathologists, I mean, are they still going to be involved with the behavior teams and things to help with some of those communication pieces as well that might help curtail some of the undesired behaviors? Yes, we don't anticipate any changes in what related service or other providers might be providing. This is really just trying to get it from more of a centralized, more itinerant to more of that site level. So

119there will still be collaborative team members and there will still be other expertise and other lenses to help assist these students. I'm excited. I think this is going to really be a good thing. Plus, you know, following up with what Ms. Chapman said, I am really hoping that this is not a long-term, that we can go ahead and nip it in the bud right now. So I agree with you. I don't want to see that. As this is being presented as just information, when it's presented to us for a vote, will we be approving this for one or two years or just through the term of the ESSER? Madam President, members of the board, you would be approving it with the identified funding sources? And so clearly when those funding sources are not available, then

120the board would either have to approve other funding sources for it to continue or they would sunset. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving to action discussion item. First up is H1, Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. Dr. Dean will introduce this item. Good evening, Madam President, members. Is this thing on? Good evening, Madam President, members of the Governing Board, Dr. Kellis, and members of Cabinet. We are very excited to bring back to the district what will now be the second annual Dysart Arts Festival. The inaugural Dysart Arts Festival occurred in March of 2020. And prior to anything, let me rephrase that, March of 2019, it was canceled for 2020. and 2021 as well and so in the course of four years we're excited

121to offer the second annual um dysart arts festival for those of you that had the opportunity to attend the arts festival in 2019 it was an extraordinary experience for our students for our parents and for our community and so as we bring the arts festival back we also look for opportunities for community to be involved in that and one of those pieces is for sponsorship and vendor packages and so this evening we bring to the governing board a recommendation to approve the sponsorship and vendor packages for the Arts Festival they are included in your board packet sponsorships range from obviously various financial pieces from a stage sponsor to you know all the way to to individual aspects of sponsorships and the vendor pieces are things that go along with if you recall the last arts

122festival we had a large vendor vendor booth area in which people who sell various items can purchase a booth from us and be part of that marketplace for lack of better terms. It was quite successful last time and we look forward to great success in the upcoming year as well. And so this evening we're just simply asking for approval for the sponsorship and vendor package. And does this, these funds just maintain the program and go towards just the event? Madam President, Ms. Pritchard, these funds are certainly back towards the arts festival and future endeavors as it relates to the arts. We certainly look for opportunities to make this a self-sufficient program. I'm not sure whether or not we had this in 2019. I know that I was part of a booster booth that year. I

123don't recall us having a fee for boosters. Madam President, I don't know the answer to that question off the top of my head. However, the intent of this piece would be that it's a reduced rate for our boosters. We are providing them an opportunity to raise funds on our campus as part of the festival. We believe that they certainly will recoup more than the $50 fee, but it keeps an opportunity for a vendor cost for each person that is involved in renting that space. But I don't recall the answer to your question off the top of my head. I can certainly look back at that. Okay. I will say in 2019, we were not allowed to raise funds at our vendor booth. That's good to know. I would certainly believe that the intent of having

124a booth would be to raise funds. Our intent was to recruit new students that might be visiting that day. Also would be a great thing to do. However, I'm aware that booster clubs have various fundraising opportunities that they have that could be capsulized into a booth, and that might be a good opportunity for them to do so. Okay. Thank you. However, to finish the conversation, it would be incumbent upon us to answer that question prior to charging a fee for a booster club to be a host for a booth. Right. So in other words, you're saying if we're charging a fee, then the booster should be able to raise funds during the day. I don't want to speak out. Madam President, Member Pritchard, I don't want to speak out of turn. I'm not the finance

125expert in the room. However, that is a logical conclusion. So what I heard was we can sell whatever we want, T-shirts, candy bars. Madam President, Ms. Densmore, the answer to that question I believe to be yes. Thank you. And Mr. Hicks is nodding his head up and down this way. With school fundraising approval. Yes, correct. Thank you for that clarification. When I think to, just for the sake of discussion of this item. as one board member, it would make sense that, I mean, at first I'm thinking, okay, we're charging our boosters a fee when they're part of the school, but on the flip side, if the whole point is to raise money for this event, that space could be given to somebody else that would bring money into the event, and as Dr. Dean just

126said, if you're able to sell it, you're probably going to recoup that money anyway, but I personally would be... fine charging the $50 assuming boosters are able to sell because otherwise again we want we want people coming to this or vendors getting these packages because it's going to help future festivals and Madam President Ms. Pritchard your your premise is is accurate we did not have problems in terms of attracting vendors to our fair last year we ran out of or three almost three years ago now um we will not have problems attracting and being able to sell those out and so the premise that um if if we gave a booth away for free that that's money that could be generated by um giving a vendor package to someone to pay for that which would

127then insist in paying for the arts festival in in overall is absolutely accurate back to miss densmore's point as well the difference between this particular booth activity and for example a booster club selling concessions at a football game is that the concessions at a football game are not raising funds for a larger purpose to pay for the football game. In this particular case the vendor, the fees being charged to vendors are going back to assist with the costs associated with putting on the Dysart Arts Festival. Almost like a fundraiser for the Arts Festival in a sense because you're raising money to keep it going for the students. Very well said. Much better said than I said. So I might be beating a dead horse here, okay, but I'm sorry in advance. But normally a booster

128would submit a fundraiser request and it would go to the site administrators. And what they do is they review that fundraising request and they make sure that on the fundraising calendar that there's not a duplicate. So if one booster is selling some candles, another booster can't sell candles at the same time. So I'm just, I'm putting it out there. I mean, this isn't a question I expect you to know, but I'm just putting it out there. I'm wondering if those fundraising restrictions would still be in place since it's a district event and not a school event. Madam President, I would state that. That would be a reasonable exception to that general rule. We would love to see every high school booster club that we have participate in this process. It's quite likely they're both selling

129chocolate or that they're all selling chocolate or, to your example, candles or whatever the case may be. It would be very difficult for us to control that, and it would be very limiting and, quite honestly, unfair to each booster club. And so that would certainly be a reasonable exception that we could put in place. Okay. Miss Marinelli here. I'm sorry. I don't, I've never met her, but it just seems like we should. She could address some of this right off the bat. Yes. And Miss Mary. Yeah. You don't know that. Sure. No. And Miss Marinelli is our director of arts and is the host of the Dysart Arts Festival. There we go. Thank you. Good evening. So to address the booster situation, there was a fee. You were allowed to collect funds based on what

130you wanted to sell. What we did limit was how many water booths we had. So we. allowed each high school to sell water and the campuses determined whose booster was going to have it that year and then it was going to alternate so that way we didn't have an overpopulation of everybody selling water. That may be what I remember because I specifically remember us going out and getting water and being told last minute well The people working the booth. Correct. Yeah. So we couldn't. We do monitor what's being sold, even including with our actual arts vendors that come in to make sure we don't have duplicates. Okay. Because if you're paying to be in a spot, we want you making money. So same thing even with our food trucks. We're making sure we don't have

131the same types of food trucks down there. With our boosters, if you're selling candy bars, we don't want 50 candy bar booths in a row. Okay. So we did. Look and see first come first serve when you guys put in your applications what it is that you put in But the water booths especially so we made sure none of our food trucks were selling water that day. Okay, so our boosters were able to have Market basically Thank you Do anyone else have questions for I know we approved the sponsorship and vendor package for the dice art district arts program second yes motion passes Next we have action discussion item H 2 Dr. Kellis. President members of the board and members of cabinet Ken Hicks will present this item. Good evening Madam President members of the

132board Superintendent Dr. Kellis colleagues and community members. Thank you for the opportunity to present our district's 2020 21 annual financial report. Before we get going through the presentation, I just want to thank Ms. Mary DelSmedale and her amazing team for all the work that they do to get us to this point. For the last two years, they continue to add more and more requirements into the AFR package, which causes hours and hours of work. And sometimes they will revise and find errors and send out a notice. Less than a week ago that we have to redo everything again, and it takes hours and hours So I just appreciate their dedication and devotion to doing such an amazing job, and she has such an amazing team So thank you very much as required by statute were

133required school districts are required before October 15th to approve the annual financial the financial report the financial activity of the district for the previous year And so we just try to do a provide a little bit of summary. I'll provide the rainbow report that I do at the very end of this as well. Something that I'd like to always provide just a little bit more information on. But just a quick little snapshot of our M&L budget of $170 million. We spent $162. Here are the main four program. code differentiations out there, breakout of the $162 million. Just a quick math, and I know we have a slide that shows all the carry forward, but this is a carry forward about $7.9 million. Previous year, last year, I believe it was $9.4 million. So we have

134a reduction of our carry forward in our M&O budget. Our capital funds, looking at our unrestricted capital, our debt service, and our emergency building renewal grant program. Unrestricted capital. with the 13 million spending seven, totaling all up $32 million spending 25, probably a big promotion. And we've talked about this at a few other board meetings is that emergency building renewal grant program. Last year, I believe this number was 662,000. And if I had to guess the year before that might've been like 89,000. So we're ramping that up. And earlier on the consent agenda, you had three additional items all. building renewal grant programs from the SFB. We're probably racing, and I say racing because they have a limited amount of funds, and so it is almost first come, first serve at the SFB. We could,

135would not shock me if we hit over $4 million next year. So going from around $80,000 to $660,000, now up to $1.9 million is a very big deal. So appreciate Mr. Young. all his hard work to achieve, to get those funds. Our classroom site fund, this is the Prop 301. Next year I'll be saying this is the legislative approved classroom site fund since it'll switch over from our voter approved initiatives to our legislative approved. But these are the three categories. budget of $20 million last year was roughly a budget of $20 million and then the three categories of our performance pay base pay and other menus other menus is just teacher compensation as well and so 100% of this is going to our certified eligible certified staff compensation 12.9 million the previous year the expense

136was around 11.8 million dollars so we have a little bit of increase and if you look at this year's budget there's a dramatic increase and that was due to all the sales, part of this year's rate setting for the 21-22 was they have to do this in March. And if you remember March, there was confusion of what is going on with COVID and world and didn't know what the financial impact of anything. And so there was a little hesitancy this year coming into this year, it went up dramatically. And so there's a over $8 million increase into the classroom site fund for the 21-22 year. But this is the 21 year. Here's our special project funds. This is a dramatic increase. I think we talked about it a little bit with our budget coming in

137May and then also our adopted budget. Federal grants, $41 million, huge with an expense of 31 million. State grants, food service fund. Other cash funds other cash funds facility rental or Civic Center that we talked about community ed School plant when we lease our facilities At least our site for like a cell tower and stuff like that comes in and that's also a cash fund. So that's just accumulation of the budget and then the expense of those. 62 million, as I said, a huge increase last year. This was $40 million, so it's a dramatic increase. And the expenses here being $48 million last year was about $34 million, so a very dramatic increase in our federal grants that push that way up. Here's just a summary of what our carry forward is. So as I

138mentioned before, our M&O carry forward of $7.8 million, capital at 5.7, classroom site funds 7.9, instructional improvement funds 2.3, 2.4. So the total's 23.9 million, so roughly 24 million. Last year, the total carry forward was about 25 million. So it seems very much the same, although... to me and i know the board sometimes is looking to make sure do we have sustainability funds are we where are we going with our funding we do have a declining carry forward balance so that means we're spending more money than the revenues coming in right now on the m o side and so that dropped from 9.4 down to 7.8 million Part of, unfortunately I've been watching a lot of other school district AFR presentations in the last couple weeks, because I like everybody goes online, so now I

139could watch, you don't have to drive to districts to watch those. Looking at some other schools, they do have higher carry forwards. A lot of them are using all their federal funds immediately, as quickly as possible. We have a balanced approach where we really are scheduling and programming out. Last week, we met four or five of us as we're looking at, here's what we did ESSER I, here's the finalizing ESSER II, how we were programming ESSER III. We don't spend everything right away, which you can. And a lot of these funds allow you to supplant, which means you could take a lot of M&O expenses. expenses out, move them to the federal, shoot up your carry forward in M&O, but then what are you doing with it? And there's a cliff that's coming. We really

140have a really balanced approach that we're trying to plan everything out as proactive and as realistic as possible as we're going. So I think that's an advantage that we have, but it also then means that when you have data like this of a decrease in our M&O carry forward, there is a potential concern as we continue going. If it's going to shrink by $1.5 million, then we might have five more years for that to happen. And so anybody that's going to retire in the next five years should probably retire. I don't know who that is. Sorry. That was my joke my attempt at a joke Now as one thing that I'm reminded of on a regular basis, although we don't have bonds when you're producing certain reports or doing an official statement I've seen lawsuits

141over the years of school districts that knew more information and did not did not publicly disclosed it and they got into financial trouble. SEC has fined school districts or municipalities for misrepresenting. Now we don't have bonds right now that we're actively selling or anything, so we're not misrepresenting. But to me, part of the key, and so we talk about this with budget, we talk about this with budget development, I just like to always touch base. The number of students you have is a direct correlation to how much money you have. So as we're looking. I'm hopefully providing just a little context as you're seeing. 19 to 20, it went up a little bit. We started growing after a four-year decline. COVID hit, and last year we dropped by 800-plus students from the ADM for financing

142purposes. And so I do always like to... talk about that a little bit just so that the board understands that so that if pretending if this really dropped down 5,000 kids and our AFR shows us spending 10 million more there's something doesn't make sense and though I just like to call attention to that just so that the board should be able to ask those questions and we should be able to answer that this does not show any huge and we do have the federal fund so I'm trying to explain out but I like that full public disclosure of just making sure if things don't make sense the governing board should should be asking those questions. Just a little bit additional information that's posted in our AFRs, our outstanding bonds. So this is our debt service.

143And so you see a decrease of $12 million. So we're paying off bonds. And so they're going down. We do not have any short-term debt. Other financial considerations. This is the rebate or incentive program that we have through our P-Card process. We're incentivized by using it more and paying it quickly Last year or what obviously last year you see the hundred fifty thousand the previous year in 2019. It was a hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars So you could see we're utilizing it maximize our resources. So a goal D is identifying maximizing resources This is a little bit of evidence that we continue to operate in that manner I know this is very hard to see on the screen, and so I did a handout, the rainbow report. I mean, I call it the rainbow

144report, just a little bit of information. So the purple are the two really lines to really what I look at for this presentation, which is the fiscal year 21, and it shows the AFR in these funds that are identified right above it in the adopted budget category. And then correspondingly down the Auditor General Arizona School District Spending Report as follows. We're such a crackerjack staff here. They've actually taken all of our data, our general ledger, and given the calculation of what they believe will be revealed in February. And so the bottom half purple line where it says 57.8, 15.4, 8.8. 10.5 and 7.5 is our projected so this is not from the auditor general this is our staff making their estimated projections based on the calculations or the criteria for the auditor general spending report

145and so you can see from that standpoint not a lot of movement except for a little bit more in support a little bit less in plant operations and a little bit less in transportation as we've had less field trips and other activities in transportation that justify that going up to the top half with the afr expenditures you see just a few things that pop out one you see administration costs have gone up from 9.7 up to 10.2 and so you have a little bit of an increase there if you see the detail lines above it you can see the two that went up one that went down was district administration that's dr kellis's office and cabinet's office and the governing board office those general district administrative categories or function code that amount actually went down

146but down but there was an increase at the schools and then an increase in 2500 which this increase looks like as I was digging in a little bit, looked like it was capital, which to me is probably technology. And so there was a little bit of increase in technology in our capital funds under the 2,500 that generated it. And then a little bit more at the 2,400, which is the school level front office of the school. So it's not just a principal, it's everything in that front office and the costs that are related to it. The decrease on the side that you see the plant operations dropping by over a percent, that was a movement of expenses into ESSER funds of some custodial. cleaning that represented that reduction. So that was not a cut or

147anything to that effect. It was we moved some of those cleaning functionality last year into federal funds, and that's not represented in this. And so just wanted to just go over some of those other brief highlights, a little bit more detailed than the summary presentation that we traditionally do. And here's where... our financial transparency that we put links to everything. So we'll be putting our financial report on that this week so that people can click and look directly at the detailed list, not this presentation. This is on the governing board website for our presentations, but this will break down our actual detailed AFR posted here. As I've been talking, I believe Ms. Ryan has already texted me. We do have an override page. Quick links, current override information. So as there's a question during the

148override, could we put this on our board, on our website? It is already on our website. And so we could update it for this year. It has the old information. So we will update it with the current information on that. So thank you for people's quick texts or chats. Appreciate that. And I will stand for any questions. Can I ask you, since you brought up or brought attention to the increases, the administrative increases, why do you think that just with COVID and everything, in 19, we were at, like, for the school admin, the 2400 fund, went from 5.03%, and then in 20, 5.14%, and then now 5.40. With less kids and for a while, we, you know, we weren't. you know, fully in school. Why do you think school admin costs one up for spending?

149Madam President, members of the board, that's a great question. I don't know the answer off the top of it. I could look a little bit more. Sometimes this is a great question to ask, and then I start looking deeper into our financial software. um and i will look in these funds under 2400 and then i'll just start comparing year to year and then find the biggest delta and then drill down into that cell to find out what is actually being purchased or expenses happening in those so i i can't tell you right now off the top of my head of what would cause that in the school office to do that but you just let us know yes okay thank you thank you good question You touched on the carry forward fund balances that maybe

150ours were a little lower than some other districts. Were there any trends? I mean, as far as when you were comparing to another district, are you using another district that is comparable to us that remained open, you know, made certain decisions that impacted that? Madam President, members of the board, that's a great question. I look at a lot of people's data. So probably about 10 to 15 districts I'm looking at on a regular basis. Some are comparable to us, but it's almost every one that I look at, you could probably give an example why it's not comparable. Scottsdale being closest, but then their demographics aren't the size. Washington, but they're only elementary, or Phoenix Union, but they're only high school. So when I'm looking at the size of our district, the number of sites. PV

151Gilbert is one that I look at although they're 30,000 students, but So I look at them are there trends I do see Some spike really high in their carry forward and to me not looking and I'm not at the districts so I'm not testifying on them but I think that's a federal funds that they're moving a lot of expenses over in a quicker manner to And and it spikes up their carry forward and some of that so some have had a gradual increase So if I look at other trends Most are either flat or trending up a little bit. We are trending down a little bit. So we are going contrary to what I would say is a trend from other comparables. I just wonder if, I mean, with... the level of investment that we're

152making in our schools and our students and our staff. I'm just wondering if that is making a difference in this carry forward versus another school that maybe didn't have an incentive program for new hires or bus drivers or subs. things like that that's madam president that's a great explanation yes there's reason so being on the board i think it's excellent that you can already identify some of the differences right now so that is uh to me i like to hear that uh you're paying attention to me and other things that are going on so um makes i means i could speak a little longer so thank you very much But those are some true identifications that you just mentioned right there. Now, we only talked about M&O, capital, and some of those other. I look

153at indirect costs. I'm looking at MIPS. So I'm looking at all the districts, all of those general funds that can be used for most anything. And I'm not gonna look at their school lunch program or their food service and see carry on forward because it's only gonna stay in food service. And so I look at more funds than what was presented right here when I'm comparing to other districts. And so some of them are draining other funds, maybe a MIPS and maybe an indirect where we're not, we're doing a very balanced approach as we go. It's just a little bit trending down in our M&O right now, which I'm hoping with an increase, I think that you see also a little bit of. of a decrease. Remember last year we were budgeting for a decrease

154in students, but it was a greater decrease than what we budgeted. And so that the COVID world has thrown a lot of things student wise, ADM wise, financial wise. Now, yes, we received a lot of federal funds, but it threw a lot of demographics projections a little bit up in the air. And so we're... The story is real when dr. Callas is saying we were down 600 kindergarten kids coming into this year and I wasn't sleeping through the month of July because We've already issued contracts. We're already staffing. What are we doing? And then they all started showing up after we started moving teachers out and about and so The context for everything does mean a lot. So I appreciate some of the comments you just made in the understanding of the criteria I'm glad

155they showed up. Yeah, me too. Thank you. I, too, have a question. So if I'm looking at slide 9 on the presentation or on slide 8 of the budget, let's talk a little bit about this bond. We still owe $97,086,000, correct? And we spent approximately $1 million in interest alone last year? Madam President, members of the board, that's as of June 30. And I thought of you today when I was reading through the AFR. And last year we spent just over $4 million in interest. And so it reduced the principal $12 million at about $4 million. It's in the other form, and I could tell you exactly right now, for this year coming up. And just as a reminder, these are all set when we sell the bonds. So we do not have the ability

156to change this. It's kind of when you set a mortgage and get a mortgage for your house, you set that when you sign all the documents. And so these were all set in place for us. I think we refinanced, I believe the district refinanced in 2016. And so these were all set in place about five years ago. Reset in place five years ago. Sorry. Okay. So. Could we take some of that carry forward and put it towards like an addition towards our debt? And what would it look like? What would it take for us to get out of debt in a reasonable manner without spending another 20 years on this? Madam President, members of the board, I am not aware that we could touch Fund 700. That is the treasurer and the escrow agents and

157the documents that were signed when the bonds were sold and these were sent into process. So I do not believe we can just send money to the county treasurer to place against Fund 700, to my knowledge. So we can't pay this off sooner? We have to... Are we like in a contract? Is that how the bonds work? I could double check on that, Madam President, members of the board, but that is my understanding at this point, yes. Okay. And then in talking about the bond, it looks like we spent $27.7 million to update the VISTA. Now, am I correct? Is the VISTA part of community ed? So if all the money made by community ed goes into community ed, how did we spend $27.7 million on a performance venue when we don't see the profits?

158Madam President, members of the board, is that an AFR? Well, it's part of the bond. I don't know where you're looking at. Okay, I'm looking at the website where it says current bond information, that nice pretty one that they just showed you. It says that we spent 27.7 million upgrading the Valley Vista, upgrading it to the Vista. So I'm curious as to how we can spend that money on the bond when we're not receiving money of community ed as its own. Madam President, members of the board, I'll double check the... Background of the website, but I believe 26 we did not spend 27 million dollars on that's what it says right here Madam President miss Jeff and what I'm guessing is that the bond was used to construct the Vista if I remember back when

159and some of us were around there that I was value this was built in different stages and the auditorium was Separated out from the original construction. There's another building there also that was added a year or two after the school opened. It sounds like the cost of what that building would have been at the time it was constructed. but we haven't spent 27 million on improvements other than to build the building itself. Okay, well then maybe we need to clarify because if you look at the picture, it clearly says the Vista Center for the Arts. So that leads me to believe that we spent a bunch of money upgrading and building this building, but now we just handed it over to community ed and then they get all the profits from the shows? Madam President,

160members of the board, although... So I'll take this in layers. Just being here back then, I want to say that we built the Performing Arts Center at that time, which was not the Vista. It was the high school. And I think we spent about $7 or $8 million on the facility, not 27. I'm looking at the picture. Yes, the picture is of the Vista. But the words underneath it are upgrades of Valley Vista High School, the arts, athletics, and performing arts facilities. So there were multiple facilities and upgrades that entire campus. Not because... Mean I remember building this building. This is roughly the same size and this was about six or seven million dollars and and stuff so We can go back and look if you're asking specifically how much we can do that or

161if you're saying it looks misleading We could definitely change that as well, too Well both of them because you're telling me you that we probably spent about seven million on it But it clearly says twenty seven point seven million. So maybe if you couldn't just kind of give me hey Just so I understand exactly what the $27.7 million was. Because I'm getting several different answers. I will say definitively, not to give you different answers, we did not spend $27 million to build that building. It says academic, athletic, and performing arts. I think it's just misleading. So let us change the picture and provide a better description to do that. But I will also then double check on the previous records to give the board more update on that. Okay. On the cost. We're pretty sure

162we can't pay this off early, this bond. To the best of my knowledge at this point, the contracts have already been set in place. I'm not aware that we can do that. All right, $100 million in debt. Good times. Thank you. Mr. Hicks, you mentioned that you, I think you mentioned it was refinanced in 2016? Yes, Madam President. Have we inquired about... refinance rates in the last year or two? Madam President, members of the board, that is a great question. I have some financial advisors that check with me. I normally have, I'm not, I. I don't like to cause business and cause a lot of other people making a lot of money just for us to save a couple hundred thousand dollars, which does sound like a lot, but a company might make $600,000 for

163us to save $200,000. They're going to make their money. So I normally like to see a threshold that's high. There has been some, the bond market has been very low. I've looked at a few things, not just could we do that. So that is. Something we've talked about with Stifel as our financial advisor, but also one of the bigger things that is we don't own our solar right now, and because of the short-term rates are so low as well, we would be able to get a lease, at least purchase financing for ourselves, buy the solar, and we would probably save a few hundred thousand dollars. I have been talking about it. I have not done it and brought it to the board. It takes a lot of work on the front end. And so hearing

164the board talk about both of those scenarios, I will re-inquire about the savings potential and bring a report back to the board. I mean, I know that when we're talking about millions and millions of dollars, I mean, a few hundred thousand doesn't seem like a lot. But I mean, that's a significant amount of teacher positions. other positions. So I think it's important just to get the information. So Madam President, members of the board, any savings cannot go to teacher positions or anything. It all has to stay in debt service. And once we refund it, it all goes, we've signed contracts again to set it for however many years. So I'm not saying to use that money. Oh, you're saying for the solar or, okay. Sorry. My misunderstanding. Good point. Okay. Thank you. Why does this

165feel like it's not, can you hear me? Okay, now you can, oh wow, all right. Page six of your report, it had the state grants, the special projects funds. Just curious, what was, made us expend more than what we actually budgeted for with state? Was there something that we were missing or did not receive? From the state Madam president so one members of the board so one is that our Results based funding we received more than what we budgeted in that sense And so it is a cash fund and so we were able to do that and not restricted And that was a hundred and eighty hundred in $175,000 difference. So it looks like the entire difference was under results-based funding that we just didn't, when we revised our budget in May, a lot of

166times we sync these up for our actual projected revenues coming in and the expenses that we're planning on. And we just did not sync this up from the results-based funding fund of the state grants. Okay. And last question, since I've kind of been out of the... part of it. I thought SFB was going to sunset. Are they still going to sunset? Madam President, members of the board, I think it was extended, and I'm not sure for how long, but in this last legislative session, they've moved this school facilities board under the Department of Administration. And that is now taken over full responsibility and continuation under ADOA. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I move to approve the annual financial report and related financial reports for fiscal year 2020 through 2021. Thank you. Motion passes. Next we

167have action discussion H3. Dr. Kellis. Thank you Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. At the request of a board member this item was placed on the agenda to have a discussion possible action regarding a book that just as for recall appeared on a ledger a couple board meetings ago and it was of some interest and so this is an opportunity for the board to have this conversation so I'll defer it back to madam president for the conversation I'll start so if you look on So it's basically, it just looks like it's going through the ABCs talking about mindfulness, right? There's certain spots where it talks about, it does promote some sort of Eastern religions. One of them is a Hindu symbol. And it talks about, and on the back page, if

168you look, it has a picture of Buddha. There you go, pre-present. So it says, go of your worries, be present here and now. Making a mandala can show you how. That is, if you look it up, it's a Hindu technique. It's on present, mandala. And then if you look on the back, it's got a picture of Buddha, several pictures of Buddha, talking about mindfulness. One of my concerns is, as far as religion goes, promoting religion. just being consistent because I remember several years ago at the district festival of choirs, we had a piece called Joshua fit the battle of Jericho. And I was explaining to my class, oh, it's the story in the Bible about Joshua going around seven times and the wall fell down. That's all I said. And then we had a parent

169contact district contact. the school contact and then we pulled it because we can't promote religion in the school and some of our school sites you can't even sing Christmas songs because of religion in the schools so my thoughts are if we can't do those things because of religion in the schools then we should not be promoting other religions as well my point is more being consistent because it feels like it's okay to promote these things but it's not okay to promote Christianity Or is it okay to promote Christianity, but not okay to promote these things? So I read the book. It's a quick read. And I guess my question would be, this book is not used in instruction for any classes. Is that correct? Who am I directing this to? Madam president miss or sink

170bell that is correct so as a reminder this was part of a book list that appeared in a voucher of books that were to be purchased for social workers to use for students who But I added to their toolbox so there were a number of titles that were included on the book list This specific book has obviously as was mentioned it talks about mindfulness and there may be a student at a school that a social worker Might think that this book would be helpful for that student President Chaffin, as far as the consistency, I appreciate the comment there. I think that is absolutely a legitimate concern that there is a separation of church and state, and I think it is the responsibility of school boards and administration to make sure that the Supreme Court decisions

171regarding church and state are enforced. That being said, my opinion with current state of affairs would be that it would be appropriate to, in a holiday concert, that there would be a range of selections. There's a difference between using a song to evangelize or proselytize versus using a song as part of an art performance. And if that was such the case as you suggested, I think you might see a different response today. It's entirely possible, but I just know at a couple of sites, for sure one site, this particular subject came up several times versus one Christmas song at a concert, at a winter concert, that was not okay because parents complained. And so we had to pull the whole thing. And I feel like that is in itself, I don't know if discriminatory is

172the right word. I feel like that's biased and that is not consistent, inconsistent. So, you know, I still stand by my original thoughts. So you guys. Thank you. Given what Ms. Chapman said and some of the examples she gave, I am wondering what is the consistent message in our schools regarding religious texts or images or graphic little books? Madam President. You're asking one of the biggest questions that has reached all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has, over the years, multiple cases have been brought to their attention. Some they have taken on and issued. decisions on many they have refused to hear because it's in such a gray area so as far as what's the answer it's gray as I mentioned just a minute ago if you are if a student

173goes through their entire Dysart school experience and has zero exposure to cultures, religions, nationalities, I think they would be amiss with their experience. That is not to say that we preach religion. That's not to say that we take a position to promote religion of any sort. Parents have choice. If there are extracurricular activities, we would want every student to feel comfortable in performing and singing. I think even in just the last three and a half years, we have seen performances where there have been religious songs of multiple religions that have been presented in an artful form that have contributed to the value of the performance. coming across as promoting one religion over the other. So to answer your question, I think it is a delicate conversation, but it is at the same time not something

174that we would say we are washing the student experience of any exposure to any other religion, one or the other. I wonder, because I wholeheartedly agree with Crystal in regard to consistency, and I do remember days where you couldn't say Merry Christmas or sing a song with Christmas in it, but you could sing about Kwanzaa and dreidel and different other cultures or religions. So I get what you're saying as far as if there are some possible religious undertones in the... point is having consistency in the district because I think that's extremely important. So if that's the case then I almost I mean I would totally be on board with digging deeper into that and looking at how we could eradicate that from happening and have some consistency in our district and like another agenda item

175or something whatever whatever you'd want I would totally support that piece of it I'm wondering if that happened if you'd feel more comfortable with the book only because when I look at it like when I think of mindfulness which is a beautiful Beautiful techniques come from mindfulness, but when I've used mindfulness with my clients or children, I mean, I know that the history of it technically is rooted in Buddhism, but that's nothing that ever crosses my mind or I talk about. It's just more about being present and grounding yourself and things like that. And when I see Zen, in my mind, I just think peaceful. I don't necessarily tie it to religion or anything. So in and of itself, like if... If I were to use this book, I wouldn't go there in my mind

176thinking, oh, this definitely has a religious feel to it. But I can respect the fact that if that's where you're coming from. But if it's more like, no, my issue is more having consistency and practice with, you know, not discriminating toward Christianity or other religions, then maybe would you feel that would be separate from this and just have like another way to address that outside of the book? I guess possibly, but it's, for me, it's the Buddhas are everywhere in this book. So that is, I mean, there is no mistake in a fat guy crossing his legs. That is Buddha. Okay. And then the Hindus, the Hindu sign, which, okay, if we're going to promote Buddhism and Hinduism, then I want teachers to be able to sit there and open their Bibles and pray with

177students too. You know, if we're teaching them the Buddhist techniques, then why can't we have the option of praying with them too? I get what you're saying. I mean, are there crosses in the book? Are there other religious symbols in the book? I see what you're saying for sure. It's the consistency piece of it. I'm just trying to understand if it's like a totally separate issue than this particular book. But it sounds like you do have concern about those symbols in the book. I do just want to say this. I'm a little torn on this. The text and the, I think, intent of the book I don't think is harmful. I don't think, I don't know. I don't get that first impression that it's harmful, but when you hear these things and you have a

178second look at it, it makes you think what was the author's intent. With that said, I don't really feel comfortable just... across the board, you know, saying, no, we can't have this book in our schools. Because I feel like the, you know, you're going to get the opposite and equal reaction to that. And then you'll have people scrutinizing every book that maybe has any symbolism of Christianity in it. And I don't want those books banned. I'm not typically a book banner, so. I agree with you, Ms. Densmore. I just don't want us to get in the rhythm of being like a Nazi police, and that's just throwing it out there. I feel that since this is not... an instruction purpose, the use of this book. From what I've been told, it is to help the

179social worker probably deescalate something that is happening within the school. And we just listened to... piloting or moving some staff members around because we are having so many issues in the schools of behavioral type issues and I You know, I thought when we were when I actually looked at this I thought of Miss Pritchard with regards to her being a social worker and having those tools in her tool belt to assist her with clients or whether it was here or whether it was another place. It's more of a resource not necessarily instruction and I remember years ago singing that same song. in school and it was great to do all the harmonies and everything. I totally remember it and there were certain songs that after a while, they fell off. They fell off because there

180were so many references and stuff. But I don't see, I guess I just caution us to go down that road when the Supreme Court can't even make up their mind what they wanna do. I completely understand what you're saying. If we just keep the book, that's okay. But think about instruction. Yeah, it might not be used for a whole group instruction. It might be because social workers come in and do whole group lessons in the classroom. This could definitely be used as a one-on-one instructional tool. So it could be definitely a supplementary, but it could also be an instructional material. And from what I'm getting is everybody's not seeing a need to get rid of this book or any book. But my biggest concern is the inconsistency. It appears to me that we are okay

181with promoting Hinduism and Buddhism, but we cannot hand a Christian material to these children saying, here's three options. It is okay for us to talk about meditation and Zen, which Zen is a Buddhist term. It is 100% Buddhist term. It is okay, but we cannot say a prayer with our students at school. That is my issue is there is no consistency with this. I think you join the rest of all the school districts across the state and nation. Okay, but does that make it right? No, no, I agree it doesn't make it right, but we would have a big hill in front of us in order to climb over it. Yeah, I mean there are court cases and legislation all dealing with prayer and schools. Totally understand. I don't know. Is there? Prayer is not

182outlawed in schools, though, of any type. Meditation. Well, teachers, I thought we could pray. It's my understanding. In front of the whole class. Madam President, you are correct. There is no ban of prayer in schools. There is a court case that regulates who can lead or direct or initiate the prayer. But a student individually or with some friends, yes, they can pray in school. A teacher, an employee cannot invite or direct a prayer. But we do have teachers that are, I'm not sure what the word, like a sponsor for different student clubs that might be faith organizations. Madam President, you're correct. And that's another court case that the courts have ruled on. And those sponsors must necessarily remain neutral and, again, cannot initiate the prayer. Understood. Thank you. We're about to open up a box

183that I don't think we'll be able to close if we go down this path. We teach yoga in school. And my guess is I've not taken a yoga class. I haven't observed a yoga class, but I know I take that back. I've seen them do yoga on TV. They talk about namaste. Now, whether or not, I don't even say that correctly. Namaste. Namaste. Thank you. I hear that word, and my first instinct is, oh, yoga. That's all I know. I mean, if we're going to go and look at books and say, oh, there's a picture of Buddha or there's a picture of whatever in the library, that's just, I just don't see that we're doing that. opening that box. I don't see the harm in this book. We've heard of behavior, especially these kindergartners and

184first graders, and hitting and, I mean, getting them to just sit and breathe and maybe learning how to get along. I mean, they've talked about kids that don't even know how to play on a playground. And this book talks about playing and getting along. And again, that's fine if we don't want to open that box and we don't want to take this and that book. But my concern is that consistency because it appears, appears, key word, through this because I haven't seen any text, any books promoting prayer or promoting some sort of other religious, but it appears that we're okay. And symbols, pictures mean a lot. So it's fine. I mostly wanted to have that discussion about the consistency to maybe spawn further conversations or just bring attention to that. I just want to clarify.

185We have not yet accepted this book, correct? Because it was tabled? So we do need to vote? Madam President, you do not need to vote. That particular book, as was mentioned, was part of the voucher that the board did vote to approve that voucher. Okay, that's right. So this book is currently in the hands of social workers. We actually borrowed five copies from social workers. So we could get those back, maybe, depending on how the vote goes. I didn't write on it. Was there a discussion made once somebody asked that this be put on a board agenda? Was there a discussion trickling down to, I don't know who's over social workers or with social workers as to what about this book? Madam President, Ms. Grant, there was not that conversation. This was an agenda item

186that was presented this week and we have not. met with social workers to have the conversation about this book. It would be nice to have more books though that, I mean, since we seem to have various other religions and cultures represented in our supplemental materials, being more open to books of that speak to Christianity to have a balance would be fair. Madam President, Ms. Pritchard, I agree with that. I think if you were to go to a library and read all the books, you would see that there are examples, situations, stories, references to quite the worldly range of topics. I do agree that I think that this should come back, not the specific item, but I think we should have this discussion, potential action item down the road, and have that conversation on the consistency

187piece. I agree. Madam President we'll take that as a request for future agenda items. Thank you. Be prepared it's probably going to be a doozy. If the board so chooses we have been scheduling four study sessions a year this could be a topic for our spring study session. How do you feel about that? I'm okay. Ready for the next year. Sounds good. So moving on. Do I need to. Madam President if there's no motion you there doesn't have to be a motion you could call for a motion if none is made then you would just say with no motion we move on. Do you want to make a motion? You could. I'm good. Okay. I'd be up. They already have it anyway. They have the motion. They have it anyway. I know. I know. But

188according to this. According to this we have to make a motion allowing them to use it. We don't have to. No, it says they may take action to keep or pull. May. We're not going to do anything. No, it left it open if we wanted to, but we don't have to. So we're on the same page. We're not going to take action on this item. Oh, I'd be outvoted anyway. That's okay. Okay. So moving on to action discussion item H4, Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. The Arizona School Board Association has submitted a proposal for a revision to their bylaws, which is to allow or to create another seat on their board of directors. Currently, there is a seat that... alternates two years with a representative from

189the Native American caucus and after two years the Hispanic caucus then occupies that seat for two years and so the two-year two-year two-year two-year alternation happens ASBA is recommending the change to just create a new seat so that both the Hispanic caucus and the Native American caucus both have a seat on the board of directors and they are asking each member district governing board to vote to direct the board's administrative assistant to cast a vote on behalf of the board one way or the other on this matter. Is that because they can't to go over the majority? So what I've remembered with ASBA when they ask boards to vote They never get, I don't know, what is it, two-thirds or whatever. They just don't get it. Every time they want to change the bylaws, some

190boards or districts just never vote. So is this to try to get, by having the assistants do it, then they'll get that number that they need? Madam President, Ms. Grant, I can't speak to their rationale for the process of the vote other than just... When if the board votes to approve it Or not approve the recommendation It's really just a matter of her community of Louisa communicating the vote to ASPA I remember what you're talking about. This isn't that same situation. That was something where they wanted to make it to where you didn't have to be present at the meeting to vote because they weren't getting enough people to show up. This is about a seat. I know, but it was just who voted because they can never get districts to vote. No, they can

191never get districts to show up in order for it to have the two-thirds to pass an actual bylaw. I mean, there's what is there 16 board members right now or board of directors and so this would just be adding another seat Instead of alternating the Hispanic and the Native American every two years now They just want to put another person up there. So each caucus how many members does each caucus have just one? The Black Caucus has one and The Native American Hispanic have one seat on the board, so they want to split it. So yes, there is a Hispanic caucus, there is the Native American caucus, and the black caucus. Three people, two seats. Are there any other nationalities represented? No. Ethnic groups? No. So there's only three caucuses? There's three caucuses, yes. but

192one caucus shares one seat on the board. Excuse me, two caucuses share one seat on the board. The other members of the board of directors, I believe, are the county representatives and the executive committee. I've always felt like this practice continued to cause division. as opposed to unity. I don't know why culture or race has to come into play. Why not just have seats filled through the election process based on the will of the people and based on who the voters believe is the most qualified to represent the interests. And I just question that if reserving a certain number of seats for certain races or cultures is how ASBA wants to run its organization, then why aren't they consistent with this practice for all school boards throughout the state? If they're considered the leader in

193the example for Arizona school boards, then it seems like the practice would be inconsistent because every school district has school board elections and there aren't certain number of seats reserved for particular people. And how do you decide that? I mean, do we have an Asian caucus or any other ethnicity or race or culture? So I've never been a fan of how this is done anyway. So then to reserve another seat or take a seat away from someone else because you're going to limit it to a certain culture or race, personally, that's my concern with it. I know it already stands the way that it is and there's caucuses and not everyone is included in the caucus, but as far as creating another seat, I just have concern. I'd rather it just be open for anybody

194who the voters feel is qualified and vote in through the election process. Plus, it is coming from, technically it's coming from... Higher down because they have the black alliance with NSBA they have it with the Hispanic with the NSBA so all of those are from NSBA and it's trickled on down to ASBA and Whatever other state alphabet that's out there. They have their own black alliance Asian do they have an Asian alliance? I mean, so why do we not have an Asian caucus? Yeah And I forgot about that we just said and I forgot that we just We excuse me. I'm not on the board anymore Rural it was just rural was just so there's technically for now And that does not make any sense. I think it's creating a monster. Well, it's because that...

195No, I understand the reason. Oh, okay. But it doesn't match the theme. That's all I'm saying. So I think in that case, you should be able to have a short girl caucus. Oops. All right, Chrissy. I actually agree with Chrissy. I feel like it just promotes division instead of unity, and it just singles people out for things that have nothing to do with making decisions. I'm sure their race and nationality comes into play, but are they on the reservations teaching Native Americans, or is it Native Americans who are teaching in the public schools around the state? Is it Hispanics who are teaching in just Hispanic areas, high-density areas, or is it Hispanics teaching all over the state? I feel like it just divides people even more, and I don't feel like that's conducive to a

196whole big picture. I like to look at it through the lens of logic and not of equity, in my personal opinion. Go ahead, Dr. Kellis. Madam President, I think that ASA would very much appreciate to receive correspondence from each of the board members on your opinions about their structure of the executive council on this particular matter. I think it's a question that you can answer or not answer, and I would appreciate that. ASA or ASBA? ASBA. I'm sorry. I've brought it up before actually at NSBA conference. It was like, yeah, we understand that. That's a good point. And then it just didn't go anywhere. But it wasn't a formal. I'd write a formal letter. I just feel like the last thing we need right now is more division. But by approving this, they already have.

197caucuses. We're just allowing them to have a seat and by not approving this... They're probably going to get it. They're probably going to get it. Oh yeah. Right. They already have a caucus but by approving this you're allowing one extra seat to be reserved for being tied up in the caucuses rather than being open for anyone else to just run for and get elected into. They're reserving a seat for a specific race or nationality. That's what they're doing. But they already have seats for certain nationalities. This would be an additional one. I understand that. But where the division is, is right now they're making them split, and we're allowing them to not split. No, no, they're splitting one seat now. This would be giving them a... So the Hispanic caucus would have their own, and

198then the Native American caucus would have their own, rather than the two of them sharing one. So three seats would be tied up in this type of structure, rather than just two seats. Right. So does anyone know the history behind this, why those were ever combined to begin with? It was to serve... so like with the Black Alliance or the Black Caucus, for those students or for those school districts that had more of a higher population of black students, they were not being served to a full extent. So they brought that voice to ASBA in order for them to elevate more I don't know, more resources, a bigger voice on the entire state. So if I didn't feel like I was being served by ASBA, I mean, do I just need to stick a label

199on it? Sure. Oh, wait, you're not sure. I'm not sure. Average height girl club. Or like women. Some would say women don't have a strong voice. So then should there be a seat reserved for women? Or maybe eventually at some point a transgender. LGBTQ. It just never stops. It just keeps going down the rabbit hole. On that principle, I can't support something like this. So I will move to authorize Louisa Brown, Board Secretary, to vote no on the ASBA proposed bylaw changes in the manner the Board has approved. Do I need to finish that? The manner the Board has approved. Second. And we'll vote yes or no. Can you reread the motion just so we're clear? I'll move to authorize Louisa Brown, Board Secretary, to vote no on the proposed bylaw changes. Okay. Thank you.

200All for the vote. Motion passes. Thank you. Moving to H5, Dr. Kellis. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, and members of cabinet. As I mentioned just a few minutes ago, we try and schedule four study sessions each year. The next study session is coming up on November 3rd. And given the topic of this, it has been requested that we invite an attorney to come and educate the legal basis for how things are. and based on legal counsel to the board, there's opportunity to do this in executive session. So the question here is to approve an executive session on November 3rd to receive legal counsel on this topic. It will start at 6 and how long we are going on? Madam President, it would follow the same format as the study session, 6 to

2018. It would be closed to the public. And that's going to be the only topic on, okay. That is correct. I'll move to establish an executive session for November 3rd pursuant to ARS Section 38430103 for the purpose of getting legal advice from the attorney for the public body regarding legal parameters regarding providing services for transgender students. Motion passes. So next we have requests for future agenda items. I have one. I'd like to request an action discussion item to discuss the revision of district calendars specific to the observation of federal holidays. He stole mine. Any other requests? All right. At this time, we're moving to J1. I will call for executive session pursuant to ARS 38430-103 for the purpose of discussing or consultations with designated representatives of the public body in order to consider its position

202and instruct its representatives regarding negotiations with employee organizations regarding salaries, salary schedules, or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits of employees of the public body. Second. motion passes