J.O. Combs Regular Board Meeting 2/11/2026

001I'm going to call the meeting to order at 5 o'clock. So anybody have any questions about the agenda? If not, I will take a motion. I move to adopt the agenda as presented. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries 5-0. All right. So we have a discussion item. Discussion and presentation of the demographic study information. Yes, as the board knows, about every two years we go ahead and get a demographic study of what's happening in our district, especially as we have growth. So I will invite Mr. Bramert up from Applied Economics for a presentation to explain what the latest data shows regarding our district. Thank you very much. President Hargis members of the board dr. Wyman our pleasure to be here this evening to present the results of the demographic study For this year the

002updates, I don't know if any of you or all of you have seen me present before But so I'll try to go pretty fast. But if I go too fast, by all means, throw up your hand and I will definitely stop. So the scope of work is obviously involves analyzing enrollment data, not just yours and not just the total, but grade level distributions, geographic distributions, but also looking at where else students in the district are going to school. Alternative providers, charters and those kinds of things are now an important part of the conversation. The demographic characteristics of the population. I mean, it is a high-growth area, but it's now had growth for enough years that you have a fairly good-sized existing population. So how that turns over, or if it doesn't, and how it ages

003is also important. Don Graves, next to me here with our office, is a residential development expert. He's the one who talks to the planners and developers and the builders to try to understand not only their timeline, but what kind of products they're... They're thinking of putting out there because that's real important to us because student generation depends a lot on the value and the size of the type of product that's being brought to market. We do two models. We do a macroeconomic top down district model. Big picture stuff. How does the district fit into Southeast Valley, Northern Pinal County? How does it fit into the new town of Santan Valley? All of those kind of bigger picture things. And then the one that we probably. There's a more of our claim to fame is looking

004at sub district stuff So these red squares that you see divide the district into about 60 sub areas and since and so we track residential development demographic characteristics and enrollment by each one of these Sub-district planning areas so it gives us a good perspective because if you just look at the total for the district You'll have one area, you know increasing while another area is decreasing So it's just looking at where houses are being built doesn't really tell you the whole story. It's how enrollment is changing in the other areas of the district, too. So we've had the opportunity to work with you long enough that we have, you know, enough historical data at this sub level that it's also very meaningful to what we do for the district in terms of our projections. Now,

005starting back, you know, I guess at the top, the blue bars are district. Enrollment we use headcount 40th day enrollment So it's not the ADM measurement that you get paid for because that has waiting in it involved in it So this is just headcount students and you can see that you know the big growth period between 2005 and 2011 Where the district gained about 2,500 students in very short order? And really, you know, the increase in students really never stopped after that. What happened after that was the introduction of all kinds of different charter schools and other educational options. So, you know, but really about the same enrollment, if you will, from 2011 all the way through, you know, 2020 or so when COVID hit. And so the current downward slide is actually a departure.

006It's not supported by a decrease in housing activity. It's not supported. We have an aging population going on, but it wouldn't be causing this. And so we continue to have more choice involved, you know, introduced in the system. And with ESAs in particular, it's not so much private school enrollment now as it is homeschooling and pods and all those kinds of options that are having another impact. So we already had a crowd that was seeking the charter school fine. But now we introduced another competitive item. And so that's really what's hurt us in recent years. Now you can see the rate of decline has really slowed so that this year, I think the total loss in students was around 60 or 80 or something like that. So the total rate of decline is going the

007right direction. But we're not seeing any sign of increase, even though there's a lot of housing units being added. The second way we look at enrollment is by the grade distribution. So we look at the average enrollment per grade in each of these groups. We call them cohorts. And during the boom back in 2005 to 2010, you can see that the K-2 is the biggest group. And we always see that when you have a real explosive growth situation. It's always led by young families and that lowest enrollment group. And then what happens as soon as that growth stops, whether it's because of competition or because, you know, housing is built out or what have you, the population begins to age. And so inevitably, especially in a move up market, you know, you'll see high school

008emerge as the biggest group on a per grade level basis. It's always been this way, but it's exaggerated now even more because charter schools have done a better, they've had higher service rates among K-8 than they have among high school. It's been more difficult for them to compete with a full-service high school than it has with the average K-8 student. So we see a lot of kids coming back after eighth grade, will come back to a district school for high school. But the curves are going down slowly. You can see the K-2 curve. That leads the band. And these curves do tend to follow each other. So we're really looking for that one to level out. And you can see, as I said before, COVID, it had. It had found its place. And then there

009was the shock of COVID. And then there was the reaction to COVID ever since that has, again, brought that down. And the other cohorts, unfortunately, will follow that. We use that sub-district data for all kinds of things, but one of the easiest things is just to see where the students you are serving come from. So this is the actual students, your students, not just school-age population, but these are J.L. Combs students who live in each one, the number who live in each one of these. Planning grids as we refer to them and obviously very high numbers, you know in the center of the district where the people are But it's also closest to your schools. So, you know having presence in neighborhoods is Is important in terms of drawing students? More interesting for us for

010our work is we can now look backwards over time with these boxes and look at the last five years that's happened in the district during this like what i'm saying you know kind of a departure period where. You can see out along combs road and some of the where some of those projects have been the most active The red means there's been an increase in students blue means there's been a decrease in students And so you can see where the new homes are coming in that you are pulling students out of those areas But it's all being offset or has been recently by losses in other parts of the district And we're all working in this environment that we all need to understand that it's not personal is that the population under the age of

01118 in the state of Arizona grew between 1990 and 2010 at almost the same rate that total population did But since 2010 because of birth rates it has gone completely flat We have no more people under 18 right now than we did in 2010 And so as we have introduced choice, whatever you think about education choice, we've done it during a time when the pot, you know, the size of the population to be served hasn't grown. And so we've taken the same size population and divided it into more pieces. And that's why literally almost, almost every district that we work for has experienced declines over the last five years and even longer for some of them. So there's very, very few that have been able to to, you know, dodge that bullet, I suppose, is

012a way to put it. And it's new for us. You know, if you look back in 2005, 2006, during the boom, the Arizona birth rate was about 40 percent above the U.S. average. And now it's about 13% below the U.S. average. So there's been some decline in the births, you know, birth rate nationwide that is, you know. But Arizona and, interestingly, Utah have had the largest declines in birth rates in the United States since 2006. And it's simpler numbers than looking at races. That last bullet drives it home for me. And in 2006, there were 102,000 babies born in the state of Arizona. In the last three years running, there's been 78,000. And the only thing good about that statement is that it has been 78,000. We finally have seemed to have found the bottom

013because it's been falling and falling and falling in terms of the number. We finally have found the bottom, it seems like, in terms of the number of births. But now it's going to take 10 years to restabilize that population. So nothing's going to happen quick. Meanwhile in the district demographics are shifting the green bar on the top chart just shows you total population some pretty fantastic growth from 2,700 folks in 2000 to our estimate of about 53,000 folks This year blue part of the bar is housing units which have increased right along with it But you'll see the orange part of the bar which is that population under 18, you know, it has grown but as a share of the total population is dropped off pretty considerably since 2010, the aging and all of those

014factors, and housing prices, and mobility rates are down. Those of us who are in homes who aren't selling them, all those things are ganging up to almost prevent families from getting into the market in a lot of cases. The bottom part of the chart talks about that household aging factor that I was talking about where we'll almost forget about 2000 because it was so few housing units. But by 2010, when the growth was really occurring, only 20% of the households in the district were headed by someone over the age of 55. And right now that's jumped to 43%. And we are not turning over our housing units. And so it's going to get even higher. than that. It's also tends to be the people who can still afford to buy. Is it so difficult for

015entry level and for young people to to break in, you know, into a housing market, a popular housing market like like you have here. We talked about that charter school enrollment component. We look at the districts in and nearby the district together enrolling about 6,200 students this year, but you can see their enrollment numbers down the last two years. And there's sufficient research out there now suggesting that the ESA program has actually been just as hard, if not harder, on charter schools than it has on district schools. So your enrollment is not growing, but it's not going to them. At least it's not going to the local ones. Don's going to talk to us about residential development. Well, in the last 10 years, we've had about 7,500 non-age-restricted houses built. And it's been pretty steady

016for about the first half of this period. And we see in the last four or five years, the green bars is the single family. And you can see where that drops from about 20. from about 2020 or so. That's just because there are some projects that we're building out. At the same time that they were building out, multifamily started to become a component of the housing market here. And there's been, I think, something like 700 or so multifamily units built in the last three or four years. A lot of them are the single family rentals that become so popular in the last decade. And now in the last two or three years, in the last couple of years, you've had the single family market is picking up again. You've had Wales Ranch, North Creek, and

017now last year, Solio. So you've got new projects that are entering the market, and those numbers are starting going up again. Now, if we look at where the housing has been built in the last year, the blue dots there are building permits. This is from the last year, last school year. And the primarily you've got along combs road and whales ranch and combs ranch. This is where you've got the majority of what's going on. And you do also have some up in North Creek. Where it makes almost like a crescent across there with several projects or several subdivisions under construction now. Although what's going to happen is there along Combs Road, we're going to continue to see those blue dots mounting up and things are going to be stopping within about a year up at

018North Creek. Now, if we go into residential potential, again, we have here the green bars are single family and the blue multifamily. And it's a little difficult to talk about, you know, the potential here because. And stuff that could start building in the next decade, you know, you got about eight and a half thousand units. Then there's about another 10 or 12,000 out in state land across on the eastern side of the of the district, you know, on the west side of the canal. And there's no reason to even go into east of the canal because there's probably another 50 or 60,000 potential housing units. But anyway, suffice to say that you have plenty of supply available. Yeah, I have a question. So what you're saying is the multifamily is that the blue, that they

019are... Dubbed for multifamily there within our district. The blue is multifamily. So do you know where that is? I mean, that's like I don't even know where it's at. Well, a lot of it's along Combs Road. Okay. And there's some other up on Ironwood. Let's see, Ironwood and Ocotillo right next to the TriPoint project. Yeah, if you see right along, that's either Ironwood or... Next to Safeway. Right. There and also where the old golf course is you have two multi-family homes two different sets there I know there's one on what is it? Ocotillo and Ellsworth That one's another one going in straight down the street on Kenworthy northwest corner Kenworthy and yeah, that's my name Kenworthy in north Yeah, and that's multifamily yes, is it do you know what it is if it's single or

020The ones on Kenworthy, I believe, are just a standard apartment project. What does that mean, standard? Like a two- or three-story, you know, multiple two- or three-story buildings. Okay. I guess I should have pointed that out on here with the land use map. The yellow is single family, most of which, except the state land, is already under construction. The orange polygons are multifamily. So you'll see up on... Meridian and beam up where Alonto is that is already under construction and so is you know the project on Gansel where the golf course used to be and they're just getting started on the one on Kenworthy most of the stuff that have been built in the last few years has been along Combs Road and two or three projects there okay thank you okay Well, we'll move

021right into the development timing on this the red is a project that's already under construction the orange is About to be under construction. They're already, you know have lot work done and they're on their way and then the light yellow is off a few years and what What we have is you've got a still a lot to go on what solito Will be the big project going on for the next several years, but you're gonna have a pause because of water issues at North Creek Alonto and The north part of Wales Ranch, so it'll be probably another couple of years before they get that sorted out So what we should expect will be a lot of construction going on for the next four or five years and then things slowing down because we're running out

022of land And eventually, we'll just have to see what goes on with the state land parcels. So in terms of what that means for demographics and for enrollment, we're anticipating the addition of about 7,500 housing units over the next 10 years. It'll be a mix of single family and multifamily, as Don pointed out. That results in just about an equivalent number of households as an occupied housing unit. And behind the scenes, we stratify households by age group and by owner versus renter. Because that's how we can turn projections of households into projections of the school age population. The school age population of the district is all persons living in the district age five to 17, whether they go to your school or any school. That's just the total resident population. 2010 and 2020, those would

023be census numbers and the ones in between are our estimates. But so if you look at 2025, we've got about 18,000 or so households generating a school age population of about 12 and a half thousand. Students district enrollment is just short of 3600 Which is means there's a ratio there between enrollment and population of about 28 percent 29 percent of the population is currently being served by District schools and that's down, you know from 56 percent in 2010. It's It's one of the more extreme cases, but we see this also in many other places across the metropolitan area where it's been a struggle. And so it's kind of hard for us too because we're pretty good with the household part and even the school-age population part. It's understanding or expecting how many are going to

024come to you that really turns out to be the big wild card in trying to forecast enrollment. You can see only lost 93 this year so heading the right direction how we handle that at least for the purposes of the report is to look at three different ways of doing it so if we continue to trend down in our enrollment population ratio at the rate it's been going the last five years then it would fall clear to 17% and the district would experience a loss of 868 roughly students follow If it stayed at its current level, stable column, then the district enrollment could increase by 850 students. I really believe it's going to land in between those two numbers, which is why we do the forecast. And that's the number I use to go forward

025into all the other projections. But understand that this is a major wild card, and there is no way to be at everyone's dinner table to figure out how these decisions get made. And every time we get used to a trend and a pattern, they change the rules. And so we're desperately also always trying to catch up to that. But student population, school age population is going to grow. There's no doubt about that in my mind. It's just how much of that growth might you be able to serve? So we do enrollment sub-district by using those grids. We look at enrollment by attendance area first because it's tied directly to geography where kids live, which, as you know, because of open enrollment, is different than where kids attend school. So I want you to, the main

026reason to point this one out is you'll see two tables in the report that look the same, and they're not. This one's by attendance area, and the second one is by school. And it also then details how many students are coming from outside the district in addition to the other attendance areas. And you can see the changes that have occurred, just say in the last five years where, you know, losses of 75 at Ellsworth and 103 at Harmon, you know, more than offset the gains that were gained at Simonton. Those kinds of things. We're not going to dwell on all these numbers right now. We do show the open enrollment pattern. It's useful for a lot of different purposes. This shows that if you read it across, there's 309 students at Ellsworth who live in

027that attendance area. They also get 13 from Harmon, 4 from Branch, and 65 from Simonton, and 62 from outside. So they have total students in the seat of 453. If you read down, you find out there's only 360 students coming from that attendance area. So that particular student gains a net of 93. And then we can compare that total reside column to what the reside was five years ago. And we talk about this period where we've lost, you know, now 400-ish elementary students during that. particular period and you can see how those were distributed by area. But we use those relationships to convert enrollment by attendance area into enrollment by school, understanding that they can change over time. Um, but mainly they only change when you open and close schools. Otherwise we found these patterns

028to be very stable. Um, we're not going to beat up the beat up the numbers right now, but just wanted you to know how to read the table. I do have a question on this slide. Based on these numbers and your experience, would it behoove us to consider the success that we see at CTA with the dark blue? residing outside the district. They have a very large share of those students to consider their success as a potential draw if implemented in part or some of the other campuses within the Combs District so that we could be more competitive with the charters. It's possible. However, you'll find that there's a group that wants that. And once you satisfy that group, no matter how many more you create, you probably won't gain. Now, does that mean you

029shouldn't look at maybe a second one at the opposite side of the district kind of thing? Yeah, maybe. It's not a bad idea. We're all looking for those ideas. Thank you. I have a question about the new developments. Is there age restrictions on any of those new developments? No. Okay. It's really interesting. The age-restricted community has almost gone by the way of the dodo bird. Okay. That's good. People aren't wanting to formally. They'll do it by market orientation, but not really legally. Okay. And that Atlanta might have a small section that's age restricted at least that was original But the majority of Atlanta was not going to be age restricted. So I agree with them You're not seeing much but Alanta which is just south of North Creek may have a one section There's I

030think three different sections in there and one may be age restricted But the others are that lease those lease homes or multifamily. Okay. Thank you So I'll try to get you out of here on time We've obviously seen substantial increases in the school-age population In the district, but unfortunately, they've been you know completely offset by other educational options all of which are out of your control There's really nothing you can do about about a lot of that a lot of that activity as Don was talking We see a real strong run coming up in single-family housing the next three or four or five years Several projects that are have multiple builders involved that are going that are going gangbusters We might hit a little bit of a dip, you know down later in the projection

031period depending on that state land conversion, but We're looking at solid housing growth, at least for the next five years, up to as many as 1,400 units per year. These are out of order. That's nice. The magnitude of the impact of that housing growth is going to be determined as much by choice as it is by demographics. Total enrollment in the district, you know, under the forecast scenario might only decrease by 180, but it might grow or it might shrink a lot more than that. There's just too many variables. We know in the short term we're probably going to experience a decline. But when you have a service rate or an enrollment population ratio like that at 28%, 29%, there's a lot of people out there. So you don't have to get a lot back.

032in order to make a pretty big difference in enrollment. And maybe the last bullet is in the right place because I think the formation of the town of Santan Valley is going to have a positive impact on the market demand for housing in the district. I know it's going to have a positive impact on land values and wait a few years and we'll pick up some municipal services to go with those. And I think those are all going to be positive things for the for the area and for the district. It'll also be nice to have a partner, a local partner you can work with. in planning and all that kind of work so um that's my presentation uh thank you uh if you have any questions we'd be happy to take them any questions

033no thank you so much thank you appreciate the information we'll reconvene the the next meeting at exactly 5 30 so you have two minutes we're going to go ahead and do our pledge in charlotte scotty is going to um lead us in the pledge today good job good job good job she's out of there Wow. All right. Okay, so we have the meeting minutes. Any questions on the meeting minutes? We have a regular, just the regular meeting minutes? Both are in the same line item, if that's okay. So make the motion for both, please. Okay, do we have any questions on either one? If not, then I will take a motion. I move to approve the public and member only January 14th, 2026 board meeting minutes as presented. I second. All in favor? Aye. Motion

034carries four to zero. We lost a board member in the, in the midst. We had a scheduling conflict. All right, so we have current events. So Superintendent Report. Thank you, Madam President. A number of different things going on. Back on the 22nd, we did have, if you know, we're in a partnership with School Connect. And one of the major things that we do with School Connect is what's called a community cafe. In this case, we had 50 community member service organizations and local businesses attend the event. And we break up by school, and there's a chance for these different individuals to talk with principals about things that are going on in the school and ways they can help us. So overall, it was a very, very positive event, and it's a great way to build

035community partnerships with a wide variety of individuals working with School Connect we sometimes get. business partners that might be a little bit further out of our direct area, which is always nice because you never know when there's going to be times that you're going to use them. I went through the spelling bee just recently, 27 of January. We had 18 of the top spellers in middle school and five elementary schools compete. First place went to Salman Rashid, seventh grader at Combs Middle School. Second place to Abel Inyen. sixth grader at Combs Traditional, and third place was Benjamin Stocker, eighth grade student at Combs Middle. They moved on to the Spelling Bee, the first and second place winners, the Pinal County Spelling Bee, which was last week, and Solomon finished second in that event. He will

036move on to the state competition. This is the second year in a row of doing that, and then depending on how the state competition last year went to nationals, and so we'll see if that happens again this year or not. So that was a big event. We do have at the high school regional band auditions and nine comb students auditioned for placement in the central region band with four students earning selection. So it's a very competitive region out here in the East Valley. So it speaks highly of the band program. And the students that were selected for this honor include Lana Rosenbaum in the piccolo, Michael Kinionituba, Macaulay Abel on the clarinet, and Reed Macera on the percussion. We also are starting into that time of year where you start to get CT competitions, both

037at the state level, which will then also transcend into potentially national level. So four members of the campus newspaper staff attended the FBLA Region 2 competitions held at ASU. And for the second consecutive year, junior Raymond McKinney earned top three finish in journalism competition. He finished in first place as a sophomore. And so this is just another example of excellence with our students in the CTE. We've had kinder roundup success at Ranch and actually across the district. A chance to reach out to those parents that would have kinder students as we talk about the... The demographic study that we just heard, obviously the Kinder Roundup is critical. We will have a follow-up Kinder Roundup later in the spring. And then we're looking to expand some of the stuff with Kinder to help with the transition

038in the summer, some of our schools. So we'll continue to work in that area. CHS Student Council was very successful after attending the state convention in Gilbert. That's a large event with over 2,000 students. And they earn any number of awards, including gold-level charitable contributions for donating over $3,000 to local charities, including Special Olympics of Arizona, Feed My Starving Children, Hip Hop Homes, Angel Men's Syndrome Foundation, and the Hope Women's Center. They also receive platinum level for service project hours for logging over 300 hours of community service. And the Ohana Spirit Award, recognize them as a friendly student council in attendant. I know Ms. Pfister is doing a great job with those kids. And I do think it's nice to see, not just here, but also some of our other schools, the notion of community

039service and what kids do today compared to how to choose my generation. I don't know as I've joked. We probably couldn't spell community services. We spotted those five or six words or letters. But these kids, it's part of what they do. It's part of their resumes. And they do an outstanding job. And it's whether it's student government or different clubs or different schools raising funds. It's always nice to see the job that they do to go ahead and help out any of the different worthy causes in our neighborhoods or in our community. harman has again service projects just serving the east valley offered some after school club based around service projects for the local community. They work with volunteers to create artwork for local hospitals and retirement communities. They help lead parent-teacher conferences. It will

040occur in February, and so it's a great opportunity for the kids to help show what they're learning. They also have the Kindness Challenge fundraiser that starts the 17th and runs through the 27th. The Ellsworth Eagles are full of learning and celebration. Kicking off things with the Candyland Dances on Friday, filling the campus with music, smiles, and sweet memories. Also looking forward to student-led conferences on the 12th and 13th. Symington is ready to jump back into learning coming out of the break. And sixth graders at Symington, as well as the other schools, had a chance to visit the Combs Middle School so that they could begin their transition to middle school next year. Also, they're thankful for the PTO and the generous donations for the brand new stallion mascot, officially named Simon, Simon Simon, visiting the

041classrooms and attending school events. CMS is running towards success through generous donation from New Balance through Rising New York Runners Club. And the CMS students received new running shoes, ensuring that every student who once wanted to run had proper gear. And the Night News CTA was a recipient of a smart TV, an amazing donation from Central Christian Church. And they will also be having... Student-led conferences in February and planning a math night. So a lot of things going on and just wanted to share some of those. Sounds great. Okay, so we have a school and staff recognition. Yeah, we'll start with Harmon. All right. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Wyman, Ms. Judy. Appreciate the opportunity to present tonight on behalf of Harmon Elementary. We have a little highlight video we'd like

042to share with you, so I'm going to ask Mr. Rutko to go ahead and play that. Come check out some of the things that make Harmon Elementary a great place to go to school. We have a specialized walk-to-intervention program and reading will service 13 skill groups in Tier 3, as well as groups in Tier 1 and Tier 2. We believe in patriotic spirit with an annual Veterans Day celebration and film walk. This year, we've hosted multiple special projects like Balloons Over Harmon, our Kindergarten Alphabet Parade, and a pirate play by our sixth graders. Every year we like to host parent events, our SAMHAS workshop event, our drunk retreat, and we really believe in family support. We've worked with community members all around the valley to help support our Harmon families. I will tell you, I

043did not prompt those kids to do the We Love Our Prince vibe. I really promise you. I went outside and I was video recording. They always all want to be on video. And I said, you can say anything that you love about Herman. And I said, one, two, three. And they said that. And I go, well, that's going in the video. I thought it was fantastic. But there are so many other things that I could highlight about Herman. You know, it has been through your kind of commitment for me to build a community where. our families want to be a part of what's going on our staff wants to be a part of what's happening and we're really really working hard to establish um kind of that uh voice in our community that says we

044believe in schools or a school where kids can learn and that means that our classrooms are managed and that we um hold kids and staff members accountable. So it is a work in progress that we're continuing to grow, but tons of great things happening. And one of the best things about Herman is it's people. So I'm happy and proud to highlight some of those individuals tonight. So I'm going to ask Ms. Sierra to come up. So Sierra Barnamitz is a paraprofessional. This is her first year at Harmon. And I came to know Sierra through another colleague here at Combs. She called me and she said, I know this gal and she really wants to be a para. And I think she would work out great in your building. And boy, the minute I met her.

045Her love of kids, it just exudes from her. She just has such a positive spirit. I know someday she's just going to be an amazing teacher of her own, but right now we are blessed to have her. She does everything, like runs reading groups with kids, in addition to working just with our special education students. So, Sierra, we're super thankful for you and everything that you do. Nice. I would next like to call up Tara Ramirez. So Tara, first and foremost, has been a Harmon parent now for quite a few years and was always an active member in our PTSO. But when we had a crossing guard opening, she came to me and she said, I think I want to do this. I think I want to be a crossing guard. And I was like,

046oh, yeah, come on. We were ready. We had already known her so well and we were so excited. And that kind of transformed into playground recess aid. And she took that on wholeheartedly. And then when our library position opened, she approached me and she said, listen, I know I don't have any teaching experience, but I think I really want to do this. And so I said, you know, our librarian isn't really a traditional librarian because in specials this year, we decided we were going to do art. instead of library. So I said, you're going to kind of have to be a librarian and you have to be an art teacher too. And she was like, okay. And so we brought her on board as our art teacher. And the things she is doing are like

047amazing. She has kids learning about Van Gogh and about Monet and they're painting and drawing and they think they were using like charcoals or something the other day when I was in there so she's creating an amazing learning environment for those kiddos so we are super super thankful for her so Tara thank you for everything that you do at Furman and then finally I'd like to call up Deanna Herrera So Deanna came to us this year as our instructional coach. And you know how you have those people in your life that you're like, I didn't know that I needed her until I got her. That's kind of how Deanna has been. I pride myself on being a very passionate, strong instructional leader. But I always was kind of needing somebody alongside me to help me.

048do the things that I know that we needed to do to truly make Harmon a great learning environment. And when this lady came along, I was like, we have been blessed. I mean, we have just been ultimately blessed. She comes with just such a great background in instruction and in working with people and building relationships. She just fit in seamlessly. And we could not be doing what we do without her. And I don't think she ever sleeps. We joke around all the time about how. She's just always constantly working. So we are blessed and grateful. And you better stick around for a really long time. And I did just want to recognize our volunteer tonight couldn't be here. Her name is Lil Archuleta. She works with Home Depot. And at the beginning of the year,

049I reached out to her because we wanted to do Love Our Schools Day in October. And our staff lounge really needed a makeover. And our campus needed a little revitalizing, like painting on the playground and things. And she came to me and she said, why are we waiting until October? So literally in two days notice, she brought out a whole team. Oh, wow. Did our entire lounge. They brought a team in and they repainted all of the cement things on our playground. It was like a hundred and. 15 or 18 degrees that day and they were all out there working a painting. So I know she can't hear. She's really, really sick. But I did want to just acknowledge and just let you know, Home Depot in general has been a huge support this year

050for us and along with so many of our other community partnerships. But it was really, really nice to see somebody just step up and take that on in just a short amount of time. So I wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you. And now we'll go ahead and have Ms. Dunker come up for Ellsworth. Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Wyman, and community. I have Ms. Brown, one of our second grade teachers at Ellsworth, and some students that are going. There's Adelie waving at me, very excited. They are very excited to present tonight. So they are going to present something that they have been working on with some grant funding that was provided through the Combs Education Foundation. And so I am going to turn it over to Mrs. Brown. Yep, they are coming through.

051They're going to need help. Oh, she did it. Look at that. Give her a driver's license. They are ready to go. You ready? Okay, take it away. We did a coding masking. Danny Ray and Adeline and Dan are going to show you how it works. They tend to multiply quickly. This is how you program the mouse. So first I have to press the screen button. This is a great STEM project. It is. One of the things when Ms. Brown wrote the grant was coding without using a device. So they're really working on problem solving, collaborating, and that's one of the things that goes on in Ms. Brown's class every day. Good job. How fun. We should play a good class with you guys. Oh, did I get the cheese? Oh, yeah. John, ladies and gentlemen,

052thank you for the change. You are so welcome. Thank you for presenting. Good job. We have a future leader in our group here, too. Ms. Brown, you can go anywhere. Guys, stay right there for a second, okay? Just for a second. Ms. Brown, can you come over here, please? So the first staff member I'd like to recognize this evening is Mrs. Brown. Nice. Mrs. Brown previously worked at Ellsworth during the 2020-2021 school year. And then she moved out of state. And after spending time out of state and moving back to Arizona, she contacted me and said that she wanted to, hey, do you have any openings? I'd really like to come back to work at Ellsworth. And I was very excited. And we were happy to welcome her back to our team. She brings a

053positive energy to Ellsworth every single day. And in her classroom, when you walk in there, it is just pure joy. The students, she's just thoughtful in her planning. It's intentional. And she is deeply committed to preparing meaningful, engaging opportunities for her students. And that is the one thing that I really love about Mrs. Brown. She brings a sense of joy to her classroom. And I always, it always just puts a smile on my face. And the students, like just seeing how, and they're like, they're nodding. They really enjoy it. And her students respond to that environment. They, by staying engaged, they take risks in their learning and they are thriving. And that is just. And just through the support of the Combs Educational Foundation through the grant and seeing what she's been able to do

054with the students in just a short amount of time and her initiative and follow through and enthusiasm for everything that she does. It just it just makes a meaningful difference for our students and our school. And so I just wanted to recognize Mrs. Brown for her hard work. Nice. Good job. She has to say cheese, right? Yeah. Oh, yes, cheese. All right. If I could get Dana Cokerhands to come up here, please. Yeah, I know. I know you didn't. The email I sent was pretty vague. So Dana has been a part of our community, I think. Three years? Well, no, your kids have gone to Ellsworth for a long time. And so she first as a parent, later as a staff member, she joined us as a playground aide. And through that role, she, I

055mean, she quickly demonstrated how dedicated she was to not only our community and our school, but also to our students. Like she just, you know, she really just fit right in. She wanted to do more. And she, so she applied to be a... paraprofessional in our self-contained program. And she cares deeply about Ellsworth and our community and the students. And it just shows and shines through in everything she does every day. And I just... I can't say enough about what she does and just the value that she adds to our campus. And she's here. I know she's tearing up. She's tearing up. And I and we're just grateful for Dana and everything that she does. And I just I love you so much and everything that you do for our campus. So thank you. I

056can have Sierra Scotty come up here. So Sierra Scottie, she joined the Ellsworth team three years ago as our attendance clerk. And she quickly became someone that the families knew, very friendly, outgoing, which is something you need in a front office, you know. And this year she transitioned into being my administrative assistant. And I got to tell you that that has really been. amazing for me, especially as somebody who likes to just do everything herself, that it really has been, it really has just been an essential part of our school. And I truly could not do the work without her. Her positivity and warm presence just brings something to our front office and to our school. And it really has helped immensely with just the day-to-day. operations of not only the building but the front

057office and I am truly grateful for everything that she does and we couldn't run Ellsworth without her so thank you so much see oh she's crying Sierra thank you so much for Stephen and last but not least is volunteer recognition can I have Miss Megan Olson please come up here Well, I know. I know. Yeah, I know. She didn't. I'm like, hey, are you coming to the board meeting? She's like, yeah, Camden's going to be there. I'm like, yeah, she'll be there. Camden or not Camden, Megan. Sorry, got confused there for a minute. Megan has been with she's been working with our PTO for the last couple of years in a supporting role. And she is this year is her first year as our PTO president. And let me tell you, like she just brings

058such a positive energy and is such a go getter. And I just love everything that she has done. Let me turn on my notes so that I can see him again. She generously gives of her time to support Ellsworth and our students, our staff, and our families. And there have been some big things at Ellsworth this year, and she has just taken the initiative to get things going for families, to support them, and for staff members. She always approaches her role with commitment and care. And I know, like, bottom line, that Megan really, truly cares and just wants the best for our school and for our community. And her leadership and collaboration and willingness just to do what's best for our school really means a lot. Because, you know, we can't survive without our PTO.

059I just have to call her and just text her and just say, hey, this is what I'm thinking. And she makes it come alive. We've collaborated this year on trying to increase our social media presence. And she has helped with ideas, with coming up with flyers. And she's like, let me help you because that shouldn't be something that you're trying to do all on your own, which has really helped. been a blessing so i just megan i just want you to know how much i appreciate you and i'm glad that you are part of the ellsworth equal eagle family nice and thank you so much for letting us thank you share with nice okay well i'm gonna go ahead and move on to student of the month dr fountain I'm going to recruit her to

060do student of the month, too. Yeah, right. I was like, you want to do student of the month? She's like, yep. Yep. Move on over. You would rock it. You were leading out there, and I loved it. Loved every bit of it. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Wyman, and, of course, Miss Judy. I'm happy to step in and do our students of the month this month. As my former colleague, Mark DiPolisis, would say, it's the best part of my day. Right. We're going to start with Combs High School and our... Theme this month is global awareness. So is Jeremy Parent with us tonight? Jeremy? Come on up, Jeremy. Jeremy has been an all-star student, both running the entire program as well as performing with the band. Whether that work ethic looked

061like figuring out rides for others, practicing his part, rearranging the band room, cleaning up others' messes, Jeremy is never idle. Busy man. He's always working for the good of others and himself. Congratulations to Jeremy. Good job, Jeremy. All right, next up we have Combs Center for Success and Savannah Foster. All right. Looks like Savannah could not be here this evening, but Savannah is said to be a bright and thoughtful student who consistently brings wonderful ideas to our discussion, especially in history. She engages actively with the material, offers insightful perspectives, and is eager to share her thinking with others. Her curiosity and enthusiasm help enrich class conversations, speaks up on issues important to her, her classmates, and her school community. So I know Combs Center for Success will honor Savannah at another time. All right. From

062Combs Middle School. Samuel four. Samuel consistently displays a global awareness in his classes, student council, and with his classmates. He has an upstanding character and clearly has a handle on diversity and is culturally aware. He consistently participates and motivates his peers to engage, making him a positive influence in every setting. He's going to do grand things and have a positive impact with all whom he engages. And very importantly, which house are we in? The purple. You're going to shout it out? From Combs Traditional Academy, we have Sarah Glover. Sarah truly shines in our classroom through her helpfulness and positive attitude. She always takes care of her workspace and helps keep our classroom clean. She's quick to help others pick up trash and show care for the environment. She comes to school ready to learn and

063always tries to do the right thing, making her an outstanding role model who demonstrates responsibility, kindness, and respect. Congratulations, Sarah. All right, from Ellsworth Elementary, Presley Stockton. All right, Presley Stockton is being nominated for the February Student of the Month for following the Rise Code consistently in her curiosity about her classmates' cultures. She really enjoyed recent lessons and discussions about Martin Luther King Jr. and adds wonderful insight on fairness and kindness toward all people. Ellsworth is fortunate to have her at their school and can't wait to watch her grow. Way to go, Presley. All right, from Harmon Elementary, Joey Graves. Joey's been nominated this month for global awareness for consistently showing respect for others and for demonstrating an understanding of the importance of kindness and inclusion. He actively participates in class discussions by sharing ideas

064and listening respectfully to others. Joey makes an effort to keep his classroom and the campus clean, thereby being a positive role model for others to follow. Way to go, Joey. From Ranch Elementary, we have Macy McGlovin. Wow. Macy, I feel like your cheeks are a little red right now. Are they embarrassing? The fan base over there. One more time for Macy. The sixth grade team at ranch is excited to nominate Macy for student of the month for her curiosity and thoughtfulness and mindfulness for others around her. She treats everyone with respect and values the different cultures, backgrounds and traditions that make ranch so special. In the classroom, especially ELA, she thinks deeply about the topics she reads. Regardless of the time, belief system or issue, she shows strong understanding and empathy for different viewpoints. She

065is a true global leader. Congratulations. And from Simonton Elementary, Jace Belafato was practicing back there. All right. Jason is being recognized for demonstrating his outstanding global awareness. His curiosity about the world goes beyond the classroom. He makes thoughtful connections between what he is learning and real world events. He listens respectfully to different perspectives, ask meaningful questions, and shows an understanding that people may have experiences and viewpoints different from his own. He is a positive role model who demonstrates what it means to be an informed and globally aware learner. Congratulations. Those are our students of the month. Thank you. We'll take a few minutes break. So if you can get some pictures, you want some pictures, and then we'll move on with the meeting. You're free to leave. You don't have to stay for the rest

066of the meeting. Oh, you can. Okay. So we have any public comment? No public comment. Perfect. We have a consent agenda. Any questions on the consent agenda? Yeah. Oh, dang it. All right. 7.5. Celebrations, comments, anything? You guys got anything? I do. Didn't someone else want to go first? Well, just real quick. I was able to give, I was digging through my stuff, and I found one of the football helmets from the first group of kids, and they all signed it for me. So I wanted to give that to the high school so that they had it, and the very first T-shirt, and you should see the. I'm not a PR person, so I was just scrambling at the time. But the logo, because I didn't know. And so we made T-shirts, and it says

067class of 2012, so that was the first class. So that was the very first T-shirts that we made. And so I just donated that to the high school. Thank you for doing that. Well, first, since I'm the liaison for CMS, I would like to have a house. How many houses are there? I'm in the greenhouse. Yeah, you have to go spin. I'll come spin. Are there five houses? Can we all be in a house? Oh, so we could all be in a house. I'm already in the greenhouse. No, really, if I come down there, will you let me spin? Okay, I'm coming down. Done. I'll be there. The Combs High School Student Council. adopted Kenworthy Road. So we have FFA that has adopted Coyote. I really appreciate that. I see them out there multiple times

068during the year cleaning up the road. And then today was the kind of inaugural day of the adopting of Kenworthy Road. And so they were out there today cleaning up. And so that was really. Fantastic to see the youth out there doing amazing things in the community. CPAC is going to be hosting Cinderella February 19th to the 21st, 6 o'clock showings nightly. They have a harp player that I know. She's pretty good. She's going to be playing in the orchestra pit, but it's going to be a really good production, so I would encourage everyone to go support them. Flag football at the middle school is doing amazing. I love one of the players there, so I wasn't able to go to the game, but hopefully they won. Okay. They've been doing amazing, though. The blue

069team and the gold team. And then, of course, spring sports and track and field. So just lots of really exciting things happening at the middle school and the high school that I've been able to see firsthand. And it's just, we have a great district. I love it. And I'm excited to come spin. I'm really coming. I think I, both the... Mrs. Horne, I went to the curriculum meeting, the last curriculum meeting. I loved it. I thought they were great. I wish that they would come here and give us their feedback in person because they were great. Spanish, the Spanish teachers really put in a lot of work. Holy moly. Like spreadsheets and everything. I absolutely loved it. But anyway, it was good. And so, yep, that was great. I know we're going to have something

070later. So, all right. No public comments. And so now we have our consent agenda. Any questions, comments, concerns on those? If not, then I will take a motion. I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries four to zero. Okay. So. Number five. Okay. Hold on. I'm trying to get through this. I honestly, can I tell you every time that I do not like this program? Yeah. Every time. I apologize, Miss Farkas. I know. It's not your fault. But there has to be like some sort of. competition, right? Like there has to be another vendor. Anyway. Okay. Number 10, action items, consideration, discussion, and direction. So 10.1, discussion and consideration approval of the fee schedule for 26-27 school year. Evening, Madam President, members of the board,

071Dr. Wyman and Ms. Judy. I'm back at the podium again to share with you, hopefully, Greg can open up that link there. But just taking a look at our fee schedule for the 2627 school year, we bring this to you on an annual basis for review. We did take a look at it this year and propose some moderate increases on multiple areas. The last course fee increase that we put in place was eight to nine years ago, so it's been a period of time since we last increased fees. Obviously, costs have gone up. We did do some review of some comparative districts around us. The interesting, unfortunate, or favorable, depending on how you look at it, answer is it's all over the place. So there really isn't a strong norm out there. I would say

072by and large. what we have in our course fees is competitive with what exists in other districts. So we don't have anything that's far outside the norm. So we're just bringing this to you for consideration. I can't even read that myself, but the vast majority of it, I think we're Either $25 fees that we made a recommendation to consider moving to 30 or 30 to 35. You can see some of the fees down there at the bottom as well. Just a couple dollar increase just to keep up with inflation. But we'll take your direction on what you want us to do with that. Okay. Any questions? No? If you don't have any questions, I will take a motion. I motion to approve the 2026-27 school year fee schedule as presented. I second. All in favor?

073Aye. Aye. Motion carries four to zero. Okay. 10.2, discussion consideration or approval of limited instructional pilot for the AP U.S. history. All right. So this is a proposal to take a look at one of the approved AP resources. or Advanced Placement US History class. Mr. Vignes is currently the educator for that class. He came to us last semester seeking some support for that program. So AP is a little bit different than some of our core adoptions in that the AP folks give kind of a menu of options and ask you to utilize resources from that menu. So it doesn't have to be any one particular text, but they have a recommended source. This is one of them that Mr. Vignes asked us to consider using for the course. Again, our curriculum pieces are intended to

074be rigorous, aligned standards. And so we kind of are in this phase of that process, requesting board approval for a pilot. So state statute allows us to ask you to bring forward a pilot of a course. rather than a full adoption. This gives us an opportunity to put the course, excuse me, the material in place a little bit sooner. We do so as a supplemental resource. Again, AP is a little bit different in that nature. What I would recommend if you approve moving forward is that we treat this very much the same way we do an adoption in terms of the public display so that we have full transparency with our community that, hey, we're going to pilot this. We're going to put it on display for 60 days so that the public can review

075it. They can make comments. They can give input toward it. We would look to launch this in the fall of next year. So we've got time on that. But as several board members have participated, actually, I think all four of you have participated at some point in the adoption cycle this year. You know that it's pretty lengthy. And so this gives us a chance to get that material in place a little bit sooner. Then we would launch a formal adoption process in the fall of next year. Same kind of timeline that we're used to that in the spring semester we would finish that up. It could be a recommendation of a full implementation of this specific source. It could go a different direction. What I would recommend in this situation and scenario is that if

076we move forward with the pilot adoption, we would do so with a digital text. The advantage of that, of course, is that if we get through the pilot and we decide we don't want to keep it or utilize it, we're not sitting on a class set of books then that we don't want. It's just simply turned off. So it's a pretty easy approach to it, but it would put a resource in play. I would say that our... Our AP scores could use some help. So we want to make sure we're getting a quality text in place to support that. I'm not at all following my slides, so that's not helpful. The cost for that is about $1,600. 50 for the one-year pilot. It's about $55 a kid. We currently are running one course, so it's

077not a huge expense to the overall budget. Could be a little bit higher than that if we had higher enrollment next year. It would simply be the student edition with digital courseware, so that's that online version, and then the teacher gets one copy of the coursebook as well. Questions? I have a question. You had mentioned that there might be other options that would also foot the bill without having been privy to Reviewing it and comparing it to some of the other options that would also fit the bill for mr. Vignes to be able to utilize I don't feel comfortable jumping right to making a motion. I would personally feel more comfortable seeing what the options are so that we could delve into them a little bit as a board instead of signing off on it

078for pilot usage. When do you have to have this? So it's kind of a comment more than a question. When's the cutoff date? We have time given that it's a digital resource and we would, I mean, when we first started this conversation, the dream scenario was to have it in place in the spring semester. So we can help prep kids for the AP tests. Obviously, it's February. That's not going to happen. So we've got some time. So what we can do then, you know, we've kind of introduced you to the concept of the pilot. I'll bring back next month for you the menu of options that exist in there. I'll get some direct input from Mr. Vignes on perhaps why this is a recommended one, what he sees in that resource. And then we can

079take your direction. So we've got time. It's not anything that we need to rush on. The only caveat to that, I would say, is that I would like to try to honor, just because I believe in the transparency piece, the 60-day period. So I don't want to push it too far to the end of the year and then not give folks a chance to review the resource. Okay, so we can bring it back next. Okay, also, so I would like to know what, like, he says, ready for the AP. the AP test, what in that, like in this supplement supports going, like what he's going to, how it's going to help them with the AP test. That's one thing that I would like to know. I will get your direct answer so that I'm not

080answering on his behalf. No, I totally understand. I do know that, you know, as it stands at the moment, the teacher is creating all the resources, and that's a pretty big burden to place on the teacher, so he's doing his best, but he reached out and asked for us to consider. No, definitely. And can we just hear from him? He wants to come and talk to us. I would be happy to invite him. I'm sure you would. For anybody that doesn't know, he announces at the football games, so we would recognize his voice. About how many options are we talking about? I mean, would you limit the options you bring to us? AP does kind of limit. AP limits us more than we limit ourselves. And obviously, much like we've talked about or we will

081talk about again with the core adoptions. There's only so many vendors out there that even publish AP books, so there's not very many to choose from. So it's not hard to bring you all of those as choices to look at. So I just want to let you know that the Spanish teachers really set a bar, so I'd like to see like a spreadsheet. Yes. Oh, wow. Graphics. 3D models. Totally teasing, but yes. You want it in English or Spanish? I don't care. Cheryl's going to do a promotional video for me. She says no, thank you. All right, we'll try again. Okay. All right, we'll bring that back for you next month with a little bit more information. Okay. I would go ahead just so we stay within structure, let's go ahead and table the action

082on this motion to next month. Table the action, yes. We'll table it till next month. Do we need to, yes. Yeah, motion to second. I motion to table the pilot usage of Fabric of a Nation for the 2026-2027 school year until further notice. And I second the motion. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries four to zero. Okay. Now we have discussion consideration of approval of the facilities rental fee schedule for 26-27 school year. And so very similar what Dr. Fountain just said about course fees is that when you go ahead and compare to other districts around us, it just depends on the district you're in for what it is. In some cases, we're higher. Some cases, we're lower. Some cases, we're right on. So in order to take a look at increasing costs associated with

083our facilities, very similar to with course fees. We recommend a proposal of increasing our course fees by 10% across the board for each one. And again, that will keep us in line, relatively speaking, with the districts around us. Again, there may be a couple that they're a little bit higher, maybe a couple that they're still lower. But rather than trying to go in and try to figure out. Which one of these we're going to try to be close to which district it just would be a nightmare So in meeting on it, we would just recommend a 10% increase and so I would move it forward with a motion for that if at all possible Okay any questions? I don't have any questions. I just have a comment. In other facets of my life, I work

084in circles of organizations and individuals in the community, and the district is very competitive with their pricing. And even with a 10% increase, I believe that they would still be very competitive and be a great resource for people in our community, but then also help us on the back end with an extra cash flow. Okay. Any other? Okay. I'll take a motion. I motion to approve the facility rental fee schedule for the 2026-27 school year as presented. I second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries 4-0. All right. We have our information discussion. 11.1, discussion and information on the annual district budget process. Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Wyman. Colleagues that are still awake. Are you guys sleeping? No, but I might put them to sleep. I'm going to apologize in advance. I

085promise I won't try to pull out too many acronyms, but there are a lot of acronyms that we do deal with. So I do apologize for that in advance. What we want to do tonight is present to you an overview of the budget process, what we go through. And this could impact us whether we're doing a proposed budget, an adopted budget, or a revision to the existing budget. When we look at our budget, everything revolves around our students, our ADM, which is our average daily membership. We are not compensated for the number of students that are enrolled. Arizona revised statute identifies ADM as the total enrollment of fractional students and full-time students minus withdrawals and each school day through the first 100 days. There is a misconception people believe, well, the student is enrolled with

086you. If they're not here, we do not get funded. So that's why it's a moving target that we have to monitor on a regular basis. ADM impacts our general budget limit. It impacts our unrestricted capital. It impacts any add-ons or subtractions we need to do to the budget. And it also impacts us maintaining our current budget. So we're going to look at each of these a little bit more in depth. Again, 8 a.m., you're going to have how many kids are enrolled? Okay. How many kids are going to show up for school? How many kids are going to show up to school next year? What's my enrollment going to be next year? I don't have a crystal ball and they keep telling me I can't use the magic eight ball to shake and try to

087figure that out. But those are things that we have to ask ourselves, not only at the beginning of every year to project for the next year, but as we monitor it ongoing throughout the year. Nine years ago, they changed how we calculate our budget by saying we're no longer going to use last year's ADM. It was called prior year funding. We would be able to say, well, last year this was our ADM. This is how much we're going to calculate. This is what we have. And they said, well, that's great if you are in a declining enrollment or you have flat. You're going to be okay. If you have growth, which there were several districts that saw growth, you're not getting the extra money that you might need on those students at the time you

088need it that year. You wouldn't get it until the following year. Again, nine years ago, they changed it, and they said, nope, we're going to do what's called current year funding. You are paid based on the students that are enrolled with you right now. That's wonderful, but it's a moving target. We also get what's called Group B weighted add-ons, and I'm going to go over those in a little bit more detail, but we do get additional funding for various things. We'll cover that in a minute. Once we determine our ADM, we've got that, and we think we know where we're going on that, then you say, all right, what's our general budget limit? We have to take into consideration inflation. We have to take into consideration transportation. District additional assistance is what we call DAA,

089our teacher experience index. Most are at one based on the years of experience, but if you have a low... A lot of new teachers, you may not be at a level one. That could impact your funding. You have to look at your reserves. You have to consider any additional state aid. The state could say, we're going to give you additional fundings for this or for that, and that happens periodically, and those are all listed in our budget. Once we determine what we have as our general budget limit, as I saw, or as I pointed out, we have DAA. Depending on how much we put of our DAA we put into M&O, the rest of it goes into unrestricted capital. So we have to monitor all of our capital expenses, and we need to have money

090for that as well. Once we get those revenues determined, we then look at, what's your current budget? You go, okay, well, why is that important? Well, we need to know how much it costs to run everything right now, but how much is our budget? Then we have to look at anything else that could impact. So let's look at some of these in a little bit more detail. This is ADM and our weighted student count. Across the top, I have last year's information. I have what we adopted for this year. And then I also ran what's called the BSA 55-1 report, which gives us everything that the state says as of January 2026. Looking at these numbers, you'll show in 25, we had ADM of 3,653 students. We had come to you and we had discussed

091projecting, based on Bramberg's reports, a reduction in ADM. So this year's budget was prepared on 3,515 students. Again, ADM, not enrollment. The current state reporting is showing that we are at 3,533. So we're only off about 17 students. So we're doing really great. Then you have to look at what's called Group B weighted add-ons. We receive additional funding for things such as our K-3 students, our English language learners. You'll see a very long list for our special education students. There's also gifted students. And then at the bottom, you'll also see we receive funding for free and reduced lunches. These are all great. And I really wish that that ADM number was what I could calculate when I calculate our base support level. However, each of these range, each of these designations has a range or

092a ratio that is applied to it. That ratio can range anywhere from 0.0220 to 7.94. So let me give you just an example. Let's look at free and reduced lunch towards the bottom. Far right-hand side, BSA 55-1. It says that we have 1,485 students that qualify for free and reduced lunch. Wonderful. We don't get to add that and get our base support level off that number. We have to multiply that by the factor of .0220. which means we can count 32.67331 additional ADM. You're going, okay, but why is that important? Multiply that by the $5,113.26 we get per kid, which means our free and reduced lunch students bring in an additional $167,000. I looked at this also, and one of the special needs, the one that the state shows that I didn't have anything budgeted

093for, they're saying that we now actually have 3.75 students. That factor is multiplied by the 7.9470. It roughly works out to about $152,000 for those three students. Sounds like a lot of money. Those are also the students that require a parapro, a psychologist, or an OT, or special equipment. So in some cases, we receive great additional assistance for these kids. And some of them, we desperately need that additional assistance to keep applying that towards our budget. So right below the blue line, the second blue line at the bottom, you'll see total weighted add-on. So if you take the... Looking at the BSA report, the 3,137 ADM, we're actually only getting credit for 1,093. That's still a lot of money, and we definitely will accept that into our budget. It shows you some numbers from weighted

094ADM, but just know that it's a moving target. As these students leave or stay or come on board, these numbers all change. So we are constantly looking at these and would bring you any budget revisions that need to. I will point out, you'll see one area in green. The reason it is blank is because the state does not usually give us that until the fourth quarter of the school year, the physical school year. So then we look at, okay, what's our money? What's budget? What's coming in? What's our revenue stream look like? Well, we just talked about how we calculated our base support level. It's also called the BSL. We have to take into consideration now our transportation revenue control limit, TRCL. Told you, try to stay away from acronyms, but it doesn't happen. What

095the TRCL takes into consideration is our eligible riders and our mileage. And it's calculated out. We get to add that to our base support level for additional funding, which gives us our revenue control limit, or RCL. Then we calculate our district additional assistance. Okay, well, she mentioned that before. What is that? That is based on prior year funding. That never changed to current year funding. So it's always based on whatever happened last year, ADM. We receive $549.45 for every preschool through eighth grade student. Again, ADM. We received $600.86 for all 9th through 12th graders, and that's how we get our district additional assistance. How a district breaks that money up between M&O and capital is subject to their needs. We, you will see on the screen, in 24 and 25, took from that $2 million,

096$1.3 million, and put it into M&O. This year we budgeted $1.2 million. A district may have higher capital needs, and they may choose to do a different ratio, but that is what we were doing. We did not have an M&O override, so that wasn't a consideration. Our carry forward, you will see, was a little over $1.1 million in 24, $1.4 in 25, and in 26 we were calculated or budgeted right now at $1 million. It's a little bit higher, but... It is $1 million. We'll say $1 million. Prop 123 was allocated out in 24 and 25. 26, it's now all rolled in. And then you have your general budget limit add-ons and or deductions. You'll notice in 24, that number is a positive number. That's because we received several state additional fundings that were one

097time. And you apply that to the negative number, which is our energy savings deduction. In 24, we actually came out ahead. In 25, we had to reduce the budget by $1 million. 26, again, another million. So then we get our general budget limit, and this shows you this is how much money we are budgeted. We are not allowed to exceed this number. This is just M&O. This information is summarized, but I would like to point out all of this information is clearly outlined on page 7 of our budget reports, whether that's a proposed budget, adopted budget, or revised budget. And those budgets are all available on our website and on the ADE website. Any questions so far? All right. So let's talk about our current budget. Let's look at the last three years. And let's

098just look at the bottom number. $29 million is what we spend, $29 to $30 million every single year, whether that's for regular instruction, our special education students, our transportation, dropout recovery, or our K-3 reading program. Why is that important? Because just like in our personal lives, we have to look at what money's coming in and what money's going out. So we need to be able to maintain these numbers. So when we go back to our general budget limit and we say, wait a minute, that's going to be more or less, we have to make appropriate changes. And some would look at this and say, well, but we've been consistent. So what's the problem? But we receive 2% every year from the state as an increase to our funding level. So we should have more money.

099Great. But we also have to look at the expenditures, and we need to take into consideration, because I would be remiss if I don't point out, yes, our spending has remained stable, but we have lost kids the last several years, which means our general budget limit has gone down. So we have made cuts. To our overall spending we have maintained and we've maximized our spending for our general budget limit but we have also not increased and we have absorbed as a district any increases in the Insurance rates and we've also been able to consistently provide 2% raises every year for the last several years Still maintaining this budget through other measures and other cuts that we took So where does that bring us? Well, this is the last step in the process, and it's probably

100one of the more challenging. We have to look at whether we're estimating, forecasting, projecting, whatever term you prefer to use. We have to look at where we are, what we think we're going to get in revenue, what our expenditures are. Are those wants? Are those needs? We utilize our demographic information, and I will tell you the Brandberg report I have used very thoroughly the last several years, and his numbers are usually very spot on. We take into consider our student information. We take care of staff information. We do surveys, who's coming back, who's not coming back, and we take all of this into consideration when we start trying to project what we are going to be able to do for next year. We do this as well during the year when we see there's a

101fluctuation in ADM that might cause us to bring you a budget revision for your adoption. So let's look at our current adopted budget. We adopted the budget using 3,515 students for ADM. That was based on 138 student reduction from the prior year. You can see our revenue control limit where we have our DAA, our carry forward, our reductions for energy savings, and our budget right now sitting at $29,608,686. Okay. Using Bramberg's number. The 2% increase, considering the carry forward, we have our, not our carry forward, but we have our revenue control limit is $28,729,127. Now that's assuming that our base support level does go up the 2%, which means we will be funded at $5,215 per student. So you're saying, okay, well, we got more money. Yes. However, our DAA. My recommendation is that we

102reduce that dollar amount to approximately $450,000. The reason for doing so is we have consistently over the last several years reduced the amount of money we put into our capital budget. That's what fixes our buildings. That's what pays for our software. That's what pays for our curriculum. We need to make sure we've got some more money going back in that to be able to maintain and sustain some of those things. Not a requirement. Just my calculation. Then you add back in the million dollars that we carried forward. The board has asked me to roll over somewhere between $750,000 to a million. Million is the target, but they will allow $750,000 if need be. We have our energy savings that we still have to pay for. That number does go up each year. I kept it

103consistent just for apples and apples, so to speak. And then we get our general budget limit. And right now that means we're down to $29,000,000, $29,049,695, or a cut of $558,000. We have to then again put back in the million dollars that we're supposed to carry forward. So now we're up to $1,000,005. We have not yet taken into consideration benefits increase. The conversations that I have had and have been exposed to with our current vendor. My estimation right now is 12% increase. And I think that's going to be conservative. We're looking. This also does not include the mandatory raises that we have to give to hourly staff every January. And we would have to determine if we give that raise, are you giving the same raise to everybody like we have done in the past?

104Or do you just increase those that we absolutely have to, depending on where we are in the budget? Then you have to consider, are you going to give raises to the non-hourly staff? Because we have done that in the past. Or do you freeze everybody? What is our rollover balance going to be? Are we going to be able to roll over a little bit more than just a million dollars? If so, that helps us out. State matching benefits. What's the state going to require? This year we are required to do 12%. They could go down to 11%. They could go up to 13%. Waiting on those numbers. And then what are our staffing changes? Let's say we do have some turnover and we do have individuals that retire. Or we have somebody who leaves and

105goes to another location. When we replace those individuals, are we going to pay more for them because they have more experience? Or are we going to be able to find somebody fresh and bright with ideas and we love them when we want to hire them? Those rates change. And then we also have to consider any curriculum adoption. That's a big expenditure for us, but it's something that we absolutely need to make sure that we're maintaining our curriculum for our students because all of this, all roll is down to taking care of our kids. So I don't have a final number for you. I can tell you all my different calculations and it depends on what you throw in and what you throw out and what you want to consider. But what I will say. and

106I'm very happy to share this, is that this has been a very collaborative process. We talk about the budget and have talked about it for several months in leadership and in cabinet. But it was also recommended that Dr. Wyman, Dr. Middleton, Dr. Fountain, and when available, Mr. Haugen and I have gone out to each and every site to do a one-on-one with principals to say, here's where we're at. What do you need for your site? And they've been very forthcoming, very honest, very sharing to say, I could do this or I really, really need this. So it's not just me sitting behind the computer with a magic eight ball shaking it. I promise, guys, I really didn't do it. Or my no button. It's us talking and finding out what needs to be done. Dr.

107Wyman spent a lot of time also crunching the numbers and trying to make sure that what do we do that's going to benefit as many people and impact as few people, but keeps us within the budget. So this is one last look, a little bit different visual. But as you can see, when we do a budget, whether it's the proposed budget, the adoption of our budget, revising the budget throughout the year, there's multiple layers that we have to consider. It'd be great if there was a crystal ball that would have the answers to say this is exactly how much your ADM is going to be. This is exactly how much all of these things are going to happen or going to cost you. Oh, and by the way, this is going to happen or that's

108going to happen. It's a lot, but just know the numbers can be clearly identified, but we always have to take into consideration our staff and our students. So what I wanted to do tonight is just make sure that you know there is a process, kind of outline what we do and what we go through in this process, try to answer any questions that you might have. We will be bringing you the proposed budget, and as you can see in Bramberg's numbers, Last evaluation said that we might lose around 57 students. This one is showing 63 students. So we are going to be proposing based on a 60 student loss. We will be bringing that to you in June. Any revisions that we need to do to the current budget based on any fluctuations on the

109weighted counts and the ADM based on our 100th day will come to you in a final budget revision, and that will happen in May for this year, and that will hold us through the rest of the school year and the encumbrance period. A lot of information. Any questions about the process or how we're looking to move forward? Anybody still awake? I don't have any questions directly about what you presented. I think what I am curious about as I'm taking this all in is going back to the presentation that we had at the beginning of our meeting this evening with the reports. What are we doing with marketing to capture all those new move-ins, those new builds, those students? Because we have... a fixed budget, but there are people out there and I would really love

110for them to come to Combs. Absolutely. And we look at everything. What do we need to do to market to try to capture any more students? What is our student counts going to be? Where do we target all of that? As well, it's part of the encompassing. There's so many facets. We have to get everybody involved. The principals have given us their feedback, but we also have to consider even transportation. What are the busing routes going to look like? Where are we going to need to send new buses depending on students and where are they coming from? So it's part of the overall review process. As far as can I tell you, this is exactly what we're doing. We're still all in discussions because we've not made any final determinations. We've gathered the information. Now

111we have to figure out. where we're going to land and what we need to do to keep moving forward so that would definitely be part of the process thank you you're welcome and and just for next steps normally what i've done the last couple years is at the march march meeting we would come back with um options for you guys to choose on what we do to build the budget you're not getting the options this year And I say that only because we've been, we've been squeezed, we've been squeezed as tight as we've been squeezed based on what we project on the budget, we will be looking at a 30% cut in three years. I don't care what business year and if you're talking to 30% cut in three years, that's significant. And so Bramert

112says roughly 60 we say roughly 60. So remember last year, we said, are we going to go flat growth? Are we going to go Bramert 180, we're going to go 80% of that. There's no choice here. We're going to go at the number that Brammer has because we got no wiggle room. And so you're not so normally what we try to do is say Julie, come and tell them what you guys look like when we try to build a budget. I'll come back in March and say Okay, at this point in time, here are some of the key questions we have to ask you. And then we would come back, and it's being tentatively targeted for Wednesday, March 25th, with the budget recommendations. A little bit different the last few years because the law has

113been changed. We cannot kick out contracts until after March 15th. That's a change in the law. That means, based on teachers having 30 days to kick them back, Um, we, uh, uh, aren't going to get answers back until mid April, but we have to make some decisions before mid April. Um, and so, so there's going to be some choices that have to be made. And I'm going to just tell you right now, uh, as Julie said, we've had lots of conversations and people come to the table with honest and open conversations, but the choices are bad, bad, and better. And so when you have those choices, so even to your point, what are we going to do to go ahead and market? Okay, let's throw $100,000 into marketing and this is what we're going to

114do. If you're going to throw $100,000 into marketing, not a problem. I'm sure Mandy would love that. What are we giving up for that $100,000? And so I think it becomes a case of what I can tell you right now is, is there a path to get a balanced budget? Yes, there is. But it's a path with some very, very difficult decisions, more so than have been in the past. And so when we come to the end of March, why the end of March? Well, as an example, you're going to get some numbers from health insurance. By that time, you're going to have some numbers for what 301 is going to be because legally they have to do it by the end of March. So you're going to have some of those numbers. But I

115just caution you that it's going to be a little bit different than it's been the last couple of years because we've had to cut so much. We're in a position where the options are much more limited in what we're going to do. We're not necessarily going to be able to do everything through attrition like we have the last two years. So the choices are more difficult than they've been in the past. And therefore, my cautionary tale is, as I've talked with a couple of you, is that at the same time, I don't want to go out and present a. Hey, we're going to get a bunch of opinions on what we should or shouldn't do when the knowledge level of how the budget is structured and works is not there. And I don't want to

116mislead people into thinking that they have a choice when the choices are very limited based on the numbers that are there. So we're trying to take a look at this and always maintain the notion of how do we protect people and always maintain the notion of what's in the best interest of our kids. But there's also the reality. of what the number is and so you won't see anything at the beginning of march you will see something at the end of the march i may provide some communication to you but but just know that this year will be a little bit different than the previous six years in here just because it is it is very much a very, very, very tight budget. And we've done a lot of things over the last five years

117to address the issues we need to. And there are more significant limitations this time around. We also want to make sure that what's the process for us to go out and talk to the staff. Obviously, it gets a little funky because in the middle of this whole conversation, you have a two-week spring break that you have to deal with. So we're looking to make sure that we can go out and do I jump to the staff before I talk to you guys? Do we talk to you guys before we jump to the staff? And so there's some timing issues of what we need to take a look at. We're still crunching and squeezing numbers. But just know the process after this point is going to be a little bit different than it's been in the

118past, just because there's not as much room to move. And so there's not as many options and choices that we would have had in the past. I have a question. After hearing the Bramlett report and stuff and all the new builds that are coming in, I know I haven't done it lately, but I know in the past I've stopped at some of the new builds and saw their information that they were giving the new prospective homeowners. And they had Queen Creek as their school district. So can we make sure that we are getting in touch with them and making sure that it's our district that they're saying? So we have actively been addressing that. Okay, good. It's a pay to play. And unfortunately, some of those things did not fit within our budget. What do

119you mean it was pay to play? You pay to have your information there and their new information packets. Wait a minute. No, what I'm saying is like they say, oh, you're your school. You're in within this school district. They have to put that. I mean, they can't just I mean, AJ can't just come in and say, oh, no, we'll pay you X amount of dollars for them. You just say that they're in our school district. Correct. So we have been actively addressing that with builders. So we've been emailing them, going on site, and when we find out or we see anything online, we go through the process basically to contact them and to get that corrected. But if you're talking about the booklets and the flyers they give out, that unfortunately is not within our

120budget at this time. No. I'm talking about, because I would say, I... Send it to me and we'll get it. No, I haven't said that it's happening now. It's just in the past. And I was like, why is it saying that Queen Creek is their school district? We are their school district. That's what I'm talking about. I just want to make sure that all those new bills that are coming in, that they have the correct information. We are actively monitoring and working with them on that. All right. And if there are any that are pay to play and they have a different school or school district, whether it's a charter or another. public school district, I would appreciate that information being sent to the board as a whole so that we're aware of it and

121we can be in tune with working with the superintendent to remedy that. Because we have boosters, we have PTOs, we have PTAs, we have earlier we heard that Home Depot helped do things for our school district. There are people in the community that support us and they will support us with their dollars even if we did not pass the bond and they can do that separately above and beyond that to help us get those materials in the hands of potential students for our district. It's no secret here that we run a family business. And this is a business, and we're competitive. And we have to start thinking outside of the box and thinking of new ways and new ideas so that we can keep going. What does that budget look like when they say pay

122to play? Like how much is that? Give me a number. On average, it's about $10,000. $10,000 to, for them, the whole, like, okay, let's just pretend it's Wells Ranch. Okay, we're just going to, so they, for them to give out information for our school district, they want $10,000? Correct. For us to be in their builder packet, which is that nice booklet that you get when you go look at the model homes, that has been the approximate cost that we have been given. And that does sound like a good chunk of money, but if you come to the boosters, we have sponsorship levels that are that high or higher that we're able to get from local businesses to support us. And so I think it's something that if we start thinking outside of the box, we

123can find ways to work together to overcome some of these things. I'm just wondering, too, is there any way that we could make a deal with rooftop fees? I mean, we do a lot of things with rooftop fees. What we try to do, the deals are already cut for the rooftop fees. Now, remember, rooftop fees are not legally bound to do it. So we have some developers that pay the rooftop fees. We have others that refuse to pay the rooftop fees. And the structure within unincorporated Pinal County, a little bit different than if you're in structured towns and cities. With the dollars that are there, what we try to do, just like with anything in the budget, take a look at that. and say okay how much money we have how do we spread this

124how much do we think we're getting in from different homes that are being built and it just becomes part of a priority conversation about how we use the the rooftop fees and it's varied we've used uh some rooftop fees for any number of things over the last couple years and it's not one thing in particular we try to peel off something that's a one time fee versus an ongoing maintenance fee, because you don't want to spend it. So I'm going to give you an example when it comes to marketing. Several years back when we made the videos that we've made that are that are up on our website. That was a one time fee that we went ahead and said we're going to spend I think was $30,000. We're gonna spend $30,000 on a rooftop

125fees to make those videos so that we have it because it's one time fee. Now we understood that you're going to have to update that in the next couple of years. So it's a is it ongoing? Well, It depends. I mean, it's not really ongoing. It may be every two or three years, but we have those conversations and then we decide there may be another time where we say, no, I would rather use the one time fee, not for that. But we have a different cost that's associated with what we're trying to do. And we think the best use of those one time fees is is for this same time. We want to be very cautious because if you're not careful. that money goes away faster than you realize it and then you you run

126out of you you have more needs later on so we balance that as best we can but we have done it past and we can look at it again matter of fact we've had that conversation already as part of the meetings to say is there some rooftop dollars that we say we need to spend uh for marketing um and that's a conversation that you may see when we come back that we say we recommend that that we increase the marketing budget by this amount And the funding source would be rooftop fees. So we're having that conversation as we speak So I just have I'm just I'm just spitballing some questions here. So Let's say it's Lenore homes. It's doing something here and then when our homes is gonna do something there Can we make a

127deal that you do it all on all of your things? You know what? I'm saying per site based and they outsource it to an agency. So yeah, we have looked into, I've looked into it extensively on how we can kind of pay to play and be in it. Unfortunately, due to restrictions, we have not been able to, and we've also looked into, well, if you're building here and then also here, why can't we do both? And they have not been willing to do that at this time. Interesting. Huh. Thank you so much. That's enlightening. Yeah. Thank you. Good job. Okay. 11.2, information and discussion on district's new mobile chat app. Woo-hoo. We're here to bring the sparkle and the razzle-dazzle, Craig. So this has been a project that was multi-department. So Craig and his team

128handled a lot of the IT behind the scenes. And then marketing handled a lot of the front end user experience of it. So Final Sight is our provider for our website as well as our enrollment CRM and our chat app. So the problem we were trying to solve with the mobile app is that we had too many third-party apps. So we had Band, GroupMe, Remind, social media, and these were being used on a variety of different campuses. And they were inconsistent in their communications, not only across the schools, but within the parents and the teams at different grade levels. And the district had limited or no monitoring of any of these groups and their communications that were going on, and it was an increased risk. with student and staff communications. So with the app, it's

129one district, one centralized app that the coaches, teachers can use to contact and chat with, if you will, students and parents. So it's stronger compliance. We have oversight of every chat that's happening. It eliminates the use of all third party messaging apps. So we got rid of the band and the group means the things that we did. We had no oversight of keeps communication within our current district systems. So we're not managing a separate system. It also auto translates into the language that they chose when they signed up for the app. And it's a level of protection for those students, staff and the district. built-in oversight all of the chats are logged um they're audible and they're archived so if someone came back and needed to reference a chat between a student and a coach

130or a teacher we can go back and look at all those chats and we have full visibility to those we also have content moderation and keyword flagging which we would never need that But district control over who can create the groups. So initially, Craig's group did a huge lift on this. So the groups were created in Synergy, and he worked to get those groups into the chat app. And he did a great job. We had a few hiccups along the way, and his team has done phenomenal with ironing out all the hiccups in that. And also, there's no anonymous messaging in this group as well. The app is not used for discipline, so we've made that very clear that they'll use their... normal ways that they would communicate with students, which would be their Synergy

131or their Gmail account through the district. This is what the app looks like. It is gorgeous and beautiful. So there's a home screen, a chat button, events are your calendar functions, a directory if they needed to get in touch with a coach or a student, and our More button has the links that our parents are looking for, whether they need to make a payment, parent view, student view, lunch menus, all the good stuff that our parents are asking for. So staff was notified in early December about this change and has received a series of communications. We've done several on-site trainings at the high school. We also have a FAQ section set up. So the FAQ section is set up under for parents, for students, and for staff. And we continue to build that out. We

132sent Blackboard messages to parents to sign up, as well as encouraging coaches and those using the app to reach out to their people. Questions, comments? I have a question. So, and I'll be honest, I had some people reach out to me and they have concerns about this. So my first question is, and I understand why you did it. I totally get that because, and I understand that part. But did you, when you were doing this and decided to make that change, were... people, I mean, cause we do this all the time, right? We're, we're about collaboration. So did you pick people from the junior high, the high school and the elementary schools and say, okay, how do you use these apps? Like, what are you using? So that you knew, you know, cause you said

133you didn't know what anyone was using. Cause everybody was just kind of going rogue using their own thing, which I get because you know, you're looking for a free thing and you're looking for, and I did student council and it was really difficult at that time because it's like, you don't want to text somebody and have them have your number and all of that jazz. So, but my question is, were other, I mean, did you collaborate or did you guys just, okay. Yep. Yes. Okay. And so we were made aware and we had some sites provide us with spreadsheets of what they were working with and what their, um, what kind of their end goal was with all of this. So yes, there was a lot of collaboration and. With principals or with people who

134actually use the? A little bit of both. Okay. Great. Do you have any questions? Not on. I don't have a question. Well, I guess I do towards the end of it, but I more have a comment. Both as a board member and a parent, I have students at the high school and the middle school that would be conducive of me using this app. I have the app. I've used the app. I'm familiar with the app. I also had concerns that were... knocking at my door and communicating that there was some unhappiness. I just want to say that I appreciate the thoughtful rollout of the new chat app. I was able to see it both as a parent, but then also I'm on five or six different, or the kids would say six or seven different

135booster. different booster clubs. And so I was able to see it from many different avenues. So I did appreciate the thoughtfulness that was put into the rollout from the training to the communication, overall responsiveness. I even, I had trouble logging in and right away I was, you helped me get in and gain access. So I was, I was really appreciative of that. Anything new is going to be difficult, right? People don't like change. When suggestions have been raised, like, can you make it so that we could pin a comment? You were able to make that happen. You worked quickly where possible, made improvements, and that matters. In the spirit of transparency, I also met with both of you and Dr. Wyman. So that I could go over some of the other concerns that I had,

136maybe with along the lines of privacy issues or some other things, some little bugs that we had to work out. In addition to some of the bells and whistles that if maybe were the squeaky wheel enough that the web developer will be able to provide for us, like events and calendars that we had available in Band App and other apps. Thank you. I think you're doing a great job. I think the more that people read the emails that go out, attend the trainings, and then have open dialogue and communication, even through frustration, right, and just let you know, I think that we'll all get to where we want to go, the end goal, because ultimately it is about protecting the staff and the students and the families. And so as a parent, I'm very appreciative

137of that. I did want to clarify, this was something that I clarified with you. Um, when I met with you is that, and I'll let you speak to it, but there was some confusion. And then I think it kind of like played the game of telephone through the district that staff are not to communicate with parents that also wear the hat of booster or otherwise. And it was more so of controlling the communication towards the students. If you want to expound upon that and clarify. So is that okay? So I'm, I'm trying to like, cause I, I'm not involved in this. So, so Blackboard and all of that is the parent communication with the teachers and the whatever. This is more for coaches and students to like, so I, so they have Google classroom instead

138of. Blackboard, right? You want to jump in? So the app is really more geared for the coaches and clubs, the high school, middle school. That's our first, you know, level, if you will. Right. Now, because the way the sync happens, like all the classroom data is there as well. So if teachers down the road want to use the app and they can encourage their parents to log into the app itself, then they can have those informal, you know, chat. you know back and forth with the parent in the classroom itself with the students you know they're in the in the groups that are created that the classes include the students and the parents themselves okay so if the teacher did want to use that as another forum for informal conversation then they can do that

139they can also the the staff can direct like do a direct chat to a parent or a student. So if I just wanted to message Ms. Horne, then I can do that. If, you know, as a, me as a staff and Ms. Horne as a, as a parent, I can do that. Now students can't chat directly with other students. Okay. Students can't directly chat with other parents, even their own. It's just like our email. Like, you know, if I was a student here, I couldn't email my parent. Like we, we'd have to whitelist that email address and we don't do that. Okay. So like, I'll just throw on my counseling hat and I'll say, I want, I want to have, I want to have a chat with my group. I run a group at lunchtime

140or whatever. And so. I want to tell my group, hey, we're meeting at lunch today or I have to cancel it or whatever. I can just talk to the group or I can talk to individual students, but students in my group can't talk to each other. In the group, they can because there's always the staff as the moderator. So if they see and there's like a little button on the app, they can turn off all posting in the group if they need to. Like say at night, right? Say they just want to use it during the day. And then at night, if you're on the weekend, they want to make sure that the kids aren't in the classroom or the group text, you know, chatting with themselves. They can turn that off. And so in

141a counseling situation to like, OK, so then these kids are talking about something that, you know, whatever. And I don't get I. I'm the one that's monitoring that, right? Yes. Okay. But we can see all that communication at a district level. We see everything that happens, whether it's in the group chat, like the chat room, or a direct message that you may have with a parent or student. We see all of that. Okay. And that's the key safety thing for why we switched to what we did. Right now, if you're using all those third parties that we have no control over, whatever's being said, we have no way to check. So if someone makes an accusation against somebody else. There's no way to check that. By going to a standard app, we have a way

142to do it. But you also have to remember it's an app that's designed for some communication like, hey, the bus is late or no group. But if you have individual one-on-one conversations that you need to take as an individual with a parent or a kid, depending on the sensitivity of the nature, you're not going to use the chat app. You're going to go ahead and use your normal communication lines, whether it's a phone call, whether it's through Synergy. whatever that is when you communicate with that. So if there's something unique to that you need to communicate to, this is not the place to do this. This is much more, Hey, remember everybody, the bus is leaving at five o'clock today. So don't be late type thing. And it just goes out to the team. This

143is not designed to say I have a one-on-one issue with you that involves discipline, then I'm not going to be using this chat app. Well, and, you know, me counseling hat, right? So I'm thinking, like, suicide. I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking bad things that, you know, sometimes communication like that happens. And it is scary because we're, you know, we're opening that door. And so they have it where they can flag. I understand that. But if it's 2 o'clock in the morning. You know, who's monitoring that? And that was our big discussion in Mesa. But at least we have a better chance of monitoring it where it's here and housed with us instead of on Band App or Facebook. I did it. I'm not arguing. I'm just trying to throw out scenarios, and, you know,

144we just need to be careful. And so another question I have is, so as this evolves, then people have an opportunity to come to you and say, hey, in my club or whatever, could we do this or this or this? Absolutely. I've already done that. And I've, you know, when we've met with the high school teachers, I said, send the suggestions to me. I'm more than happy to forward them to the final site team, you know, and I can't guarantee when they'll get to it. But, you know, at least I have no problem sending that to them. Or just for clarification, or if, because just because I have a suggestion. I have lots of suggestions and every once in a while they just come right out of my mouth. It may be a stupid suggestion.

145So I don't want anybody to walk away here that that that because someone has an idea of what they think they want to do and they raise it to to Craig, that it's not a Mac and get that way, because in the big picture. That may not be appropriate for what we're trying to do, so the answer may be no. So we've tried to be responsive to the concerns that have been raised, but I want caution so that if people think, because this program I used to use band app was easier and I want to do this and I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. If that doesn't fit in the structure of what we've set up to protect our kids and our adults. then the answer is going to be no. So we

146kind of monitor what they're requesting. And it's not an automatic. It's more of if it fits within everything we're going to do, then we'll push it forward. If it doesn't, then we're not going to push it forward. And to give an example of how it was used today, I have two kids that are in student council. And earlier I mentioned that Stucco adopted Kenworthy. And so the advisors were able to go in there and send a message and say, hey, we're meeting. in the stucco room right now, be here by this time, because then we're all going to gather our gloves and bags and things and head over. And then different kids were chatting, don't leave without me. My dad's almost there. And so it was a really neat way for them to be able

147to, in real time, communicate with one another, meet up. But then as a parent, I was able to view the communication. So I even also knew where they were, where they were going. So it was pretty neat to see it in real time. Thanks. I was just trying to wrap my head around everything that you were saying. So, okay. Just to reiterate what Dr. Wyman said, like, you know, safety is the number one priority. Right. Right. So that's what I'll, that's when I, when I'm evaluating a feature or anything that they may bring up, then, you know, if it doesn't meet certain criteria, if it's going to put any, any staff, student or parent at risk, then, you know, it won't happen. Right. Okay. I have a couple of questions. If, um, You have volunteers

148that are not parents. How does that happen? How does that work? So we have a process for that as well. I just need like the the the team, right? The shooting. Yeah. So they have folks that are outside of the district. So yeah. So they just need to send me their email, their name and email address. Like for if it's a parent that's helping out or coach helping out, even for students, I can add students as well. And then I add them into the final site, you know, as a person. There's been homeschool kids that are not in the system. And they've been able to add them on to sports teams for communication as well, which is really helpful. And they'll have the same permissions that a regular student, parent, or coach would have. Okay.

149Also, so thinking about the trap and skeet team, trigger words. Yes. Have we gotten past that? I mean, did you? Are we able to get by with. We haven't seen too much of that, but we can, like, if it hits the moderation, we can release that. Like if they're talking about. You know, that stuff, the shootings. I mean, yeah. So, yeah, that and the fact that we don't provide firearms for them, that they have to provide. So there's lots of communication on like, hey, so-and-so, you know, we saw this. And to get to help the parents get to accumulate those. So I just didn't know, like, they put pictures and they do. So I don't know how you're going to get around. These are just. Right. And if we see something like that, they get

150in, you know, especially with that, they get, you know, in the, get strapped in moderation and we can release it. Okay. Okay. All right. That's all I had. Okay. Okay. All right. I think we're, is that all? All right. Thank you. All right. 11.3 information discussion of formal adoption of the K-5 English language arts core curriculum. First reading. Evening once again, Madam President. Mr. Haugen got to start his day with me today. I promised him that I told him about the President Hargis one-hour rule so I promised him we'd adjourn by 730. I don't know who would win if I adjourned by 730 but it might be me. Sorry Mr. Haugen, I tried. All right, so this is the first read of the K-5 ELA and World Languages. This will come back to you next

151month ideally for your vote. So just a reminder about our curriculum adoption process. So we look to make sure that it meets these six criteria. We've gone through each of these steps over the course of the last several months. And we are finally on this final square here of presenting our vendors to you for a potential approval of a new curriculum. The first one we're going to look at is the K5 ELA. These are the scores, the average scores that came out based on the review of the materials. So this is the first round before we met with vendors that gave us the driver for who we wanted to bring out to learn more from. I share that because sometimes those scores adjust a little and sometimes they adjust a lot once the vendors come

152out. In this case, they swung a little bit the other way when they dove a little bit more into HMH. I can click back and forth a few times just for fun. But when we got our vendor presentations in place, this is how the scoring came out from those who were participating in the adoption process. This included teachers, specialists. We were fortunate to have some parents involved in this process, so we had a pretty wide audience who provided some information to us. Again, you can see the average scores there. HMH came out at a 128.24, McGraw-Hills at a 122.44. The other source... Resource from McGraw-Hill Open Court scored much lower. I know we had a couple of board members who joined us for that conversation. I will say and recognize that there was one campus

153that really did like Open Court, but it was pretty isolated to the one campus. It's okay, Peter, you can smile. Nothing wrong with that. And then you can see that 80% scored HMH in their top two, 72% scored McGraw-Hill in their top two, and only 44% scored Open Court in their top two. With that data in mind, we would bring you these two as potentially the top options for you to consider. One of the things we always like to do is take a look at some of the research-based components. So I provided for you in this slide deck some of the scores that are provided via EdReports. It's a good resource to look at. They vet those materials just to ensure that they are research-based. They use a lot of feedback. And what you're going

154to see in these slides, the first couple here are wonders. There's your K1 and 2. I have in my speaker notes what gateway 1, 2, and 3 mean, because you're about to ask me and now I can't remember. But it has to do with three of the essential features of fluency and something else. I can pull those up. And then you're going to see that they give a science of reading snapshot that's going to be kind of important for our early literacy pieces. Overall, pretty solid scores there. As you can see, they are a larger chunk in nature. They're not 62%. It's like 25, 50, 100. If we look at HMH as another option, it does score slightly higher for the most part. There's a couple areas where... Ed reports would score McGraw-Hill a little

155bit higher. But you can see in a lot of these, we're sitting at 90% plus, which is what we'd want to see. It's research-based, positive reviews. It's a known curriculum. If I remember correctly, HMH Inter-Reading has been out for about three years now. So it's not something that's brand new. It's been out in the market. People have been using it. When you look at those early reading components, we get a little bit stronger scores there. And then we get to the ever so fun part, the cost part. So this is the piece that I always tell the committee that I don't want them to worry about. That's for me to worry about with your direction as the board. Their job is just to score and tell me what's good. So I'm bringing this to you

156tonight for you to review and consider, and then you can give direction to me with what you want to see between now and next month, and then hopefully make a decision. So the first one of those top two was McGraw-Hill Wonders. Their best and final offer came in at $600,790. That's an average yearly cost of $85,827.14. Bob, if you're listening, I hope I got that right. Our student edition, what we get with that is a student edition with digital courseware. So that includes a soft cover student edition workbook that we get that for the life of the adoption. So for seven years, they will send us those student workbooks every year. We just adjust the student count from year to year. As long as we stay within a certain percentage, we just keep getting them.

157If, I'm not going to say if. Dr. Weiman, I'm going to be optimist him when our student enrollment goes up and we have more money, we would just buy more if we need them. And then we also get some student level readers that come with that on the teacher side of things. They get access to the National Teachers Workspace. It's just a collaborative forum where they can share plans and those types of things. There's some various manipulatives that come with that, some sound cards and those types of things. And then the additional supports are professional development and some progress monitoring and benchmark assessments. So that's what comes with McGraw-Hill, and that's the anticipated cost over seven years. Just as a reminder, we did seven years because our last adoption, the 612 ELA, we did for

158eight years. So we're trying to line this up in hopes that the next go-round, we can do it all in one, but financially we needed to break that apart. So that's what we did. And then there's HMH inter-reading. Their seven year adoption comes in at 481-568-57. If you were in those committee meetings, that initial dollar amount was significantly higher than that. The reflection on that reduced cost is twofold. One, the teachers shared some components that they were willing to work without. That helped our overall cost. Also, because we already partner with HMH into reading HMH 4R612. They tend to give a little bit better of a deal. So the best and final offer there is reflected. Obviously, that's going to be a lower average yearly cost. Student Edition with digital courseware. So very similar. We're

159going to get a soft cover student edition that comes every year. Teacher's Edition. One of the things HMH does is called Coachly. Coachly is like a call in support where they can kind of get on demand professional learning, if you will. So there's some some of that built in. It's not. particularly extensive, but it is there as a resource. There's some grammar practice built into that. In the previous adoption, the 6.12 adoption, we asked you to approve and you did approve the use of writable. It's a writing component with some AI features for 6.12. Primarily in the interest of cost, we did not include that in the K5. It's a great resource, but it's an expensive resource. When the budget turns around a little bit and enrollment comes up we can always come back to

160you and ask to add that but I'm in the interest of making sure we at least got the foundational materials in hand we did not include that in this particular adoption recommendation So before I move on to the world languages you any questions about the two ELA vendors I have more of a comment that will hopefully help to prepare for the next time that we meet. I attended all but two of the committee review sessions. Very impressed. Impressive group. It was run really well. And it was just interesting and really neat to see how it worked. Listening closely to the feedback, reviewing the programs through the board access. Thank you for giving that to us. in advance. And then I also tried out all three of those curriculums with my, I have a second grader

161and a fifth grader. I'm like, how, how is the population, the birth rate going down? I should have had more kids. Um, I, I had my second grader and my fifth grader both try all three of those. You know, you can click on the teacher's version or the student version. Um, and they both hands down loved HMH. Um, Just the way that it was laid out, the usability of it, the functionality of it. I thought that was really neat to see what a kid naturally was drawn to, liked, and then excelled with and did well with. One of my students is dyslexic, and so it was also kind of neat to see how they performed versus the one that is not. As a home educator since 2012, I personally pay close attention to how curriculum

162builds foundational reading skills. There's a saying, a building is only as strong as its foundation, and the same is true for learning. And so I think that's where, back to the open court comment, is if there's not that really strong foundation, then unfortunately those upper grades, those teachers feel that and see that and then... it can become cumbersome and disheartening to try to go back and fill in those holes. Compared to Wonders HMH Indoreading, I felt like it offered more of a systematic science of reading design, which I personally liked. It had a clear foundational skill sequence, daily decoding routines that tied directly to the instruction, integrated decodable text, and... the navigation and usability for not just the student, but then also through the teacher's side of it, I thought was really nice. I personally

163value curriculum that's open and go. And I felt like that was set up really great, really user friendly. So even if you have high turnover, let's say you have a substitute or you have a new teacher mid semester or whatever the case may be, it allows for less planning and groundwork and was more what I call open and go, which I found really neat. clear routines, ready to use lessons, engaging for kids. And so regardless of the price, if I didn't even know what the dollar figure was and I could purchase any, because as a home educator, I can purchase whatever curriculum that I want. I've been really blessed to be able to do that. I'm really grateful for that. And with that history of doing it, I would have purchased HMH into reading to

164use personally. It's a silver lining that it's also less expensive. So that's just a little bit of the feedback from. From my point of view, my only concern is when we go to the foundational pieces and we're going to be meeting, I think is it next week, is that we ensure that we're looking at those dependent upon whether we choose HMH into reading or Wonders so that we can help fill that hole that is missing for the folks that really liked Open Court. Right. That is absolutely the intention of the supplemental resource. And so that's the conversation. It's structured nicely to be able to, and we'll make sure when we have the agenda set for next month, we'll review the first read of the supplemental before we get to the second read on this, just

165so you have that information to be a part of that decision-making process. And I do have one more question. If, and I don't want to insinuate that they are or are not, because I don't know, but if the upper grades are not utilizing, was it writable? If they're not utilizing it, figure out if they plan to use it and if they don't and that was something that we paid for could we transfer that to the younger grades if it was be something that would benefit them and it's not being used at the upper grades definitely something we can look into I wouldn't make any promises, but I would say in past practice, vendors are usually willing to negotiate where we use their product as long as it's not dollars back in our pocket. We've done

166that with several vendors. So we have been monitoring usage at the secondary level. In full transparency, it's hit or miss. Some are using it well, others are not. It's a goal of our team to make sure we increase that usage because we want to be good stewards of those funds. And one of the gaps we know we have, especially at the secondary level, is writing. So that's why we brought it in the first place. We just need to do a better job making sure folks are using it. And we can bring some data on that down the road as well. I reached out to a district that uses it. They've been using it, I think, for three years now. Apparently, they're going out for a curriculum, a new curriculum adoption, and the teachers don't want

167to. So that speaks volumes. I was able to use it a couple times. There's one thing that is a little wonky on it that when doing the assessments, you could do it hard copy or you can do it. on the computer. I don't know. The grading is a lot different. Like what I would grade here on hard copy when they put it in the computer, it's way different. So I think that that's just a user. They can, they'll figure that out. I think that the way they use it is they have them do the hard copy and then they have them put it into the computer for, for the assessment. I don't know if that's good for grading purposes or whatever, but it is very user-friendly and it's pretty easy to use and they like

168it. So I think that's Beats Volume. And yes, you guys did a great job on that. I appreciate everybody that was there and put their input. Is there anything else you want us to do or additional information you want us to provide related to the ELA side of things? I don't. Okay. One of the things that I will preemptively bring you, because I did the same thing with the 612, given that we're talking about budgets. One of the things that I asked of both of these vendors, and I've already heard back from HMH, I have not yet heard back from McGraw-Hill. We always ask about the possibility of breaking the contract up over multiple years. That helps us with the bottom line. So in this instance, if we had a potential set aside, as Julie

169shared with you, of $750,000. And this is 481. Usually what we do is we try to pay half of that in year one. So then it's a 240 impact on the budget. And then we pay for a quarter and a quarter in years two and three. Just makes it a little bit easier on the budget. And I think that I know I put this in an email to Dr. Webber and I was like, is it on a slide? That that will align to with about three years from now is when the next big adoption would come up, which would be science. So gives us some time to spread that cost out over a couple of years. But I'll bring that to you next month just to look specifically at those numbers. OK, thank you. Do

170you want to go into 11.4 now? 11.4, part two. So on the world languages side of things, a little easier and simpler, very similar to the AP side of things. There's only so many world language vendors out there. It's not a huge market. So there's just a couple of them. These were the folks that came out as top scores via the vendors review. This is for Spanish. And then post vendors review, you can see that it was pretty strong for Klett as being the top one. I will say in full disclosure, I know we had a couple of community members join us as well. And Vista sent a pinch hitter for their proposal, and it didn't land well. So that didn't help them much in the process, but I think CLEC came out pretty strongly

171on top of that. So that data is there for you to consider what direction you want us to give. There's additional information you want. Happy to provide that, but it was pretty strong and sound. And as you said, the world language teachers did a pretty nice job of doing their due diligence. On the Spanish side, excuse me, the French side of things, same vendor came out on top, which is great. It's always most cost effective if that's the case, but we tell them not to worry about that on the front end. And then it scored equally as high. It's like a score or two. We did have a community member and we have one French teacher. So it's a smaller sample size. So those are your two to consider there. And we'll come back to

172that next month. In terms of cost, this is higher than I intend for it to be when we come to you next month. I will say that on the front end. However, I've not yet heard back from the vendor. I got up to them last week and they're a little slower in their responsiveness. So this is kind of like the full-fledged adoption would be 93.307 for Spanish. That's an average yearly cost of 11,000. The reason it's that high is because that's including the digital textbooks over the course of eight years. Those teachers have actually requested that we not use the digital. They're trying to get back off of technology a little bit. So we have asked for an updated quote that would give us just the hard book covers and the teacher's editions. I just

173don't have that for you yet. And then it has the 24, 12 month teacher digital additions, too. So I anticipate this will be significantly less expensive when we get to next month. But again, they haven't gotten back yet on the French side of things. It's about $6,000. My recommendation will probably would look a little bit different next month when we get to French. We have historically been. I'm going to say struggling with enrollment in French. So in all degree of probability, that program will likely sunset in the coming years. So we'll look at this one a little bit differently to make sure that we provide resources to our year two students so that they can get the world language requirements, but not likely to ask you next month to invest in an eight year adoption.

174My recommendation would be that when we get to next month, if you approve this, we go ahead and approve it as the adopted curriculum. Whether we fully purchase it or not is another story. If enrollment goes up, interest in fringe comes back, we have an already adopted curriculum we can use, and it's just a matter of working with purchasing to get it in place. We don't have to go through that whole shebang again. But at the moment, the enrollment there is pretty low. Any questions about the languages? All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, 11.5, discussion information regarding career and technical education and professional learning. Take it away, John. Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Wyman, Ms. Judy, thank you for giving me this opportunity to share briefly a little

175bit about CTE in this month. I did not bring my tall soapbox, so my colleagues will be happy. It is CTE month across the nation, and... In Arizona, Governor Katie Hobbs has officially declared it as CTE month as well. And you have that proclamation in your in your documents there. We have been amping up our efforts to. market CTE in our school and in the community thanks to our marketing team and there's some things that you probably have seen on our social media lately that are geared towards students and people who have short attention spans right so we went to from videos to reels and that seems to be effective so just as a reminder What CTE does for our students is obviously that students are developing those technical skills that they can take into

176the workplace. That is done primarily through hands-on working with industry standard equipment. They also develop those important professional skills, that gap that we hear from employers all the time that a lot of employees, both adult and youth, don't have. We provide employability skills, micro-credentials, and experience such as mock interviews, resumes, portfolios, and things like that. This year, we are bringing ASU in to help us prior to mock interviews to work with our seniors on writing resumes, so we're excited for that addition to what we're doing. The leadership skills are included as well with our CTSOs. As you heard Dr. Wyman say, we're in competition season right now. So they're exercising those skills to compete against folks from around the state. A lot of community involvement as part of those CTSOs, so they do have a

177program of work that outlines exactly what they will do to benefit the community. We do try to support the academic standards as part of the Perkins grant. We are expected to meet a certain standard or score, I should say, with our math, ELA, and science scores, so we try to integrate those as best we can. And then, of course, we have continued to work with our middle school and all the way down to sixth graders. on that career exploration piece so that they are more aware of what's out there. And then as they progress through middle school, we just finished up with our eighth graders, their four year plans. So they had the careers exploration as seventh graders. They dabbled a little bit in some electives in eighth grade, and then they created a four

178year pathway. Now that's not set in stone, so nobody needs to panic, but it does at least give them an idea of what's available in high school, what classes they can take to try to reach their goal. So we're excited that we've been able to do that with those eighth graders. A couple videos. Ever wonder what it takes to launch the next big app or lead a board group? At Combs High School, we aren't just waiting for the future, we're building it. In our business management program, we're mastering the art of leadership and entrepreneurship. If coding is your language, software and app design gives you the tools to create digital solutions from scratch. And in digital communications, we're learning how to craft messages that move the world. Get the edge, earn your certifications, and start

179your career today. Your future is open for business. Helping others isn't just a job, it's a calling. Here at Combs, our medical CTE programs put you on the front lines of healthcare. Whether you're training and medical assisting, gaining hands-on patient experience as a nursing assistant, or helping athletes stay in the game through sports medicine, you're learning life-saving skills. We're working with industry standard equipment and certifications that put us miles ahead. From the clinic to the sidelines, we're the next generation of healthcare professionals. Join us and make a difference. Those were exciting to see. They were. They were a very good job and very exciting to see out there. Jim Green put those together, so we appreciate him. And those are all our CT kids and the voiceover are our CT kids. So it was well

180done. Some reminders as well as the effects that CTE has on students as a whole. It is true, the data doesn't lie, that students who concentrate in a program, that means two or more years, they will graduate at a higher rate than those who do not participate in CTE. The national average, I think, is somewhere around 77%, or maybe that's Arizona, 77%, 78. CTE graduates is up in the 90s. The, you know, the old voc ed, it was those kids that were in CTE and not the kids that were going to college. And that has turned over the last couple of decades. We find out that 78% of CTE graduates actually enroll in post-secondary. And statistics show that they are more successful in college because of the experience they had in CTE. The lifetime earnings

181is pretty amazing. And when you look at the opportunity that students have to go directly into the workforce. because of the skills they gained in our CTE programs. Some of them, even though they go into college, they're able to work in the industry, maybe accumulating less student debt as they work through college. And then, of course, the all important dropout prevention rate that we find that students, if they have a reason to attend school, they will go. I say this every time. It's still funny. Kids do not wake up to go to Algebra 1, right? They get out of bed because they like their elective classes like fine arts. They like their CTE programs, and that's usually what motivates them or their sports, whatever it is. But whatever it is, CTE does help. So you

182have probably seen these, and they are on our website. Again, this is Jim and Mandy and their work. We decided that we were going to highlight exactly what our kids are doing that have completed a CT program and have graduated from Combs High School. And so we put out some feeders to the CT teachers and some students that we knew, and we started getting this information back. And if you get a chance, look at those CT alum spotlights. It is amazing. Our kids are out there doing wonderful things. They are making an impact in our community, in the workforce. I will argue that till the end, that we have quality programs, that kids are being prepared for the workforce. And it's something that our district and our high school can be very proud of. So

183I'll just close with this. Oops, you guys know I don't handle this well. I want to personally thank, as your CT coordinator, this board and Dr. Wyman for the support that you give our CT programs and that you have prioritized the best interests of our students and our community. That will prove... to maintain the quality of our programs that we need. We need to be able to offer these to our students. We need to give them the choices that they deserve. And so I appreciate your efforts and as well some of my colleagues who support me in this effort as well. Thank you. Any questions? We appreciate you because you're the best out there. Well, I'm all you got right now, so I am the best in the district. All right, Madam President, members of

184the board, Dr. Wyman, and colleagues, I'm just here to share a quick recap from January's professional learning. It's hard to turn around data really fast after PD, so it's a little bit delayed, but we did some learning with the 15-day challenge that we've talked about this year. We worked on the second half of that with steps four, five, and six, which is focused on assessment. and planning for learning. And so based on the feedback from the teachers in those sessions, we're above the 3.5 on a scale from one to four in understanding the resources that we modeled delivery methods and that the teachers felt comfortable implementing. What I was really excited was that qualitative data where the teachers really shared the things they took away. So they really enjoyed actually taking the assessments they created

185for students and got some insights into those. They have new strategies, they said, to target their online students with engagement in our Com Center for Success group. And our CTE teachers were even giving feedback around using that 15-day model for projects and different things in their lane, which sometimes they don't always connect with those general. sessions that we do for them and the teachers really liked aligning their assessments to meet standards. Our student services department had some much higher feedback. They really targeted their sessions and they felt like all of those really met their needs and their next steps on what they would implement were also very positive. Our OT, PT, and speech people had that stronger collaboration. They had a really good time doing that. And our... Other departments worked on aligning their goals

186and having more, again, time to collaborate. They really appreciate that time. So that's what we did in January. Next week, we actually have a Wednesday professional learning once a quarter. This one is focused, again, on supporting all learners. We're going to look at our gifted students this time around. So we're going to focus on that. Then in March, we're doing our district showcase like we did last year. We have teachers presenting. We have quite a few secondary teachers this time, so we're really excited about that. We've invited some content-specific resources from ADE, Pinal County, and a... economics program to offer some content focused PD. And then in May, we're bringing solution tree back to dive deeper into the 15 day challenge with that assessment and instruction piece as we continue to strengthen our tier one

187instruction. What questions might you have? Thank you. Okay. 11.6 discussion and information regarding changes to policy as recommended by ASBA and Policy Advisory 960. First reading. This is just first read, but it's just a simple change. They have a June 2016 in the policy that needs to be taken out. So it's just a minor change based on what's in the policy to update it. So we'll bring that back next month for approval. Okay. In terms of 11.7, this is something we bring to you every single year. The numbers have not changed from previous years. We have capacity in our schools. We try to look at it three different ways. We look at the school based on SFB or SFOD, whatever they're called nowadays, for their capacity. We do also look at it from a programmatic

188grade level as well as a programmatic piece. The only caution I will tell everybody is just a reminder, a couple reminders, is you could have capacity in the school. You could have capacity at a grade. but you might not have capacity in their program so where we see this more than anything else and so if you have two kids coming in at two different spots from the same family the answer might be yes yes and yes and then the other one might be yes yes and no and that means they would be able to come and usually what happens is we don't have capacity in the program like special education so although there may be some capacity in the in the school and there may be at the grade level There's not in the program.

189So therefore, the answer would be no, that we put on a wait list. So sometimes that leads to a little bit of confusion. The other piece is, although we have these recommended. If we're at capacity and the individual lives in our district, then the answer is going to be yes, irrespective. If they don't live in our district, they will be put on a wait list. Also for teachers, just because we have a grade ratio of let's just say 28, when you go to 29, we're not running out and hiring a new teacher. It's looking across holistically what's taking place, and it does not mean, because sometimes there's a confusion where you said it's 28 and I'm at 29. Yeah, but your neighbor may be at 22 just because of the way they broke out. Or

190just in general, what we look at, quite frankly, is moving closer to the 34, 35 range before we get a teacher because you will move in and out kids. And so we're not going to jump too quick to replace or add a teacher. And then all of a sudden we have three teachers all under 28. And so just a cautionary thing. We'll bring back this next month. numbers aren't changing in any way shape or form but if i any questions i'll be more than happy to answer and then at this time okay well good job 11-8 is just uh student enrollment so if there's any questions for the numbers we gave you i sent i think last friday be more than happy to answer it um otherwise it's just a typical report and it's with

191what rick said today and what we're doing with the budget um we're where we need to be okay So that brings us to 12 requests for future agenda items. Does anybody have anything that they would like to put on the agenda for next? Next. We spoke a lot about marketing to new builders in the area earlier in the evening. I think it would be advantageous for us to have some sort of presentation where we're creative about using the dollars that we have. Or, for example, if it's $10,000 to get into Lenar, then we go ask Home Depot or another business to sponsor that flyer and we slap their logo on it and they pay the $10,000 on our flyer. where their logo is also there, sponsored by, and we can get our information in there.

192But I think there needs to be some sort of follow-through with what we were talking about earlier. Oh, that's what you were putting on. Okay. So we want an update on marketing as far as the home. Well, not just an update, but some sort of presentation. But you may see that it may come back in March or it may come back at the back end because if the decision is to move forward with something on the budget, so it may come at the back of March. There may be a discussion on this, but also it's because it's tied into the budget. So I'm not sure which one of the two you'll get, but just know it may not be the next meeting. All right. Okay. I guess that being said, I will make a motion

193to adjourn at 7.56. I second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries four to zero.