05-26-2026 Kyrene Governing Board Study Session and Meeting

001Afternoon. Item 1.1 is a call to order for the study session. Our study session is called to order at 5.01 p.m. Our first item. 1.2 is our Kyrene Forward KTA Paloma Consolidation. Superintendent Tenias. Thank you, President Nelson, governing board members, staff here this evening, and guests, and either virtually or in person. I'm excited tonight to introduce Dr. Mark Ely, Dr. Stephanie Lake, and Dr. Marianne Lesher, who are here to present on the... Oh, on the Paloma KTA transition, which of course is not happening in the 26-27 school year, but in the 27-28 school year. Seems kind of far away, but that will come rather quickly. So we are starting the planning process quite early, and they are going to share an update on all of the activities that have taken place so far and what

002is yet to come. So thank you. Dr. Mark Ely is going to kick us off. Thank you. President Nelson, members of the board, superintendents, this evening the KTA Paloma transition team would like to update you on the work we've been doing to prepare for the future KTA Paloma consolidation. In a moment, although we've already introduced them, I will just reintroduce our members of the transition team. But I'd like to start us off by grounding this presentation in the same values and beliefs in which we are grounding this work. And starting with, I know you're all very familiar with this, but this is such a key piece of everything that we do in Kyrene as leaders, as teachers, and all of you. This is our why. And so we have anchored our work in this. And

003at the end of the consolidation process, these are the three things that matter the most. I also want to highlight the portrait of a Kyrene kid. A lot of work I know went into this, and this is what we're wanting for our students as they are ready for the future high school, college, career, life, as they move on from here. Just a note that the word traditional arts. classical, gifted, and leader. Some of the terms we use to describe some of our schools are not in this, although they're represented up there. Those aren't the terms we use to describe our Kyrene kids. So we have some flexibility in the way we get to that, the pathway that we get there. And of course, we are always leaning into these five Kyrene values as we've been

004working together and as we move through this process. Our outcomes for tonight, we wanted to share the overview of the process thus far. We also would like both the school leaders from KTA and Paloma to share their school stories. And we'll talk briefly about a site visit that we made to the Chandler Traditional Academy schools. We went to two of those schools. And then we are going to share information we gathered with focus groups. And we're currently in the middle of a survey that's out for parents as well. And we'll share an update on that and then also some next steps. So just a quick overview of the process so far. Our transition team that I'll refer to as the transition team as I speak through the night includes Dr. Lake, Dr. Lesher, Mr. Gibson,

005Mrs. Vester, and myself. We began meeting in January once this was determined that the leaders of these sites were determined in the process. We started meeting in January, and we've had ongoing meetings since then all the way through May 18th, and we will continue forward with that. We've also had administrator meetings with Superintendent Tenyes and Mrs. Jengel, Dr. Bolnick, and Dr. Ostmeyer as we've been working through some of these processes as well. Overall, we started off and spent time sharing stories from both sites. We sat down at the table and really shared our school stories, and through that began to see opportunities in some of those common areas and common themes, those things that we share. We also visited, as I said, the CTA sites, and then we debriefed and considered some of the implications

006of what we saw there. We've been out to visit each other's sites, Paloma and KTA. We planned and facilitated the focus groups, which we will share a little bit later. We analyzed that data and then created the survey to send out to all parents, as I said, which is still open. If any parents would like to participate in that, KTA and Paloma, those are still open through the end of the school year. And then we began to discuss the opportunities for a new iteration of what the two sites on the Paloma campus might look like. So we began seeing a vision for what could be. At this time, I would like to invite up Dr. Lake and Dr. Lesher to share their school stories. Good evening. Mrs. Tanyas, Mrs. Nelson, members of the board, and

007Kyrene attendees, nice to see you all tonight. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share our journey thus far. We know we have lots ahead of us, but we have been really excited about where we've been and what we've found about each of our schools so far. Setting the stage is that several years ago, probably even 14, 15 years ago, both the traditional and arts integration models were pursued out of a need and a desire for our Kyrene district to look for school choice options. At the time, charter schools were growing. The choice models were really emerging across the valley and across Arizona. And I think Kyrene at that time was saying, how are we going to get in that game, so to speak? Where are we going? to be and are we going

008to be able to offer some opportunities for parents to make those choices. They don't need to leave Kyrene to have opportunities that may be outside of a regular neighborhood school, that there would be options that they could choose from that we'd be able to keep students in our district, but then offer, again, those kinds of choices, those kinds of opportunities. And I know that's where the planning started for our KTA traditional model, and I know Dr. Lake and her team, when they were planning for that down the road, too. So for planning for KTA, we started, I was the planning principal starting in 2008. 2010-11, I was at Kyrene de la Mariposa and at the same time we were in that planning process going to visit schools, going to visit other iterations of traditional models

009throughout the area, Phoenix area, Maricopa and so forth. And then we began with our implementation of KTA as a school of choice in the 2011-2012 school year. Well, I was a few years away from joining Paloma as administration. I happened to be an assistant director at the district office when we began the arts task force in 2014. And I was a stakeholder on that team. And also this began out of... providing more opportunity for students, as well as the fact that there was the reality that arts were being cut at many schools across the valley due to staffing, low enrollment, changes in needs in schools. And Kyrene really was very deeply invested in ensuring that the arts continued at our schools. And so we began looking at different models during that time and looked at

010how we could create an arts-integrated school on one of our campuses for both KTA and Paloma. We looked at a variety of things regarding each site, the enrollment trends for schools over the course of the years, the projections for enrollments, our district boundaries, and how we would attract families to our Kyrene schools. We also looked at the facilities to ensure that we could build out some of the facilities at each campus and we could have a connection between K-8 for arts integration. So as Dr. Ely shared earlier, we began by telling our stories. And when we first started this process in January, it was a little bit daunting, to be honest with you, to think about how we were going to combine an arts integration school and a traditional school, which seem on the surface

011very, very different. And the first time that we met was in January when... Quite frankly, there is, you know, focus on schools that we're closing next year, but we wanted to start and really get a shared understanding of both of our campuses. And from that very first conversation, we met for two hours and I told Paloma's story and Dr. Lesher told KTA's story. And when we walked out of that room, we felt energized, optimistic, because we realized that we had much more in common. then we had things that were separate, that were different. We saw shared opportunities. We saw many things in our programs that overlapped. And we were very excited from that point forward. When we talk about arts integration, it's important to understand what it is and what it's not. On the right-hand

012side of your screen, you see the Kennedy Center definition of arts integration. Arts integration is not a separate fine arts school where students are taking separate courses throughout the day, but really it allows teachers to embed the arts into their core content areas through the school day. Our teachers focus on visual arts, music, movement, and drama, and they look for opportunities to embed that in their core content area like social studies, math, science, and language arts. It's not happening all day, every day. You won't walk into a classroom at Paloma and initially see something that looks vastly different. We embed activities and we embed opportunities for kids that look very much like you would see at many schools across the valley. So we focused on the Kennedy Center definition, which allows students to... first engage

013with content, deepen their knowledge about content, or be assessed on content through one of the areas of the arts. And we focused, we began by focusing on anchor strategies such as reading portraits. So you might see students observing a portrait of the Civil War. and they're looking at facial expression, gestures, objects in the portrait, and they're connecting that to their grade level standards. They might be doing that to deepen their learning about a concept. They might be using that as a form of assessment during the day. We also have more specially designed lessons such as when students learn about musical bars and time signature while they're also learning about fractional units, equivalency, addition with fractions, and they're connecting those ideas together and they may compose music from that learning. There's attention to both set of

014standards. So there's grade level content standards that they're studying, and they are also embedding art standards as well. And the idea is that they can build their background knowledge deep in learning or be assessed. So as we know, staffing changes, funding changes, needs changed at a site. When we first implemented arts integration at Paloma, all teachers received yearly professional development from the Kennedy Center. in Washington and quarterly training from Child's Play, which is here locally. That allowed teachers to understand our anchor strategies such as tableau, reading portrait, and our Actors Toolbox, which is about student behavior and integrating common vocabulary. We also received funding for 1.0 special area teachers. So our special area teachers were not based on our sections, but we had one art teacher, one music teacher, one PE teacher, and one library

015teacher who supported drama. And that allowed those teachers to do arts residencies, where they could work with our teachers every quarter on a really experiential activity, where they embedded all four areas of the arts into grade-level content. As time went on, staffing changes impacted how we were allocated our staff. And so we had a reduction of those full-time specials, and we had to make some difficult decisions. We also realized we really were exhausting all of the professional development opportunities from Kennedy Center and locally. And so we had to look at how we were going to internally sustain our development, as well as train new teachers without that funding and without those opportunities in the Valley. And so we made some adjustments to our program. We now intentionally plan for very clear collaboration between special areas

016teachers and general education teachers so that they can design those units that embed the arts every single day. We also internally fund arts coaches from some of our site-based funding so that they can train our new teachers and they can make sure that our continuing teachers are deepening their knowledge. So where are we now? We have very consistent implementation of the anchor strategies, which include reading portraits, plot dance, vocabulary dance, tableau across our classrooms in the school. Students use school-wide vocabulary that supports our PBIS systems. And we have sustained our professional development internally. Concurrently, we've not just focused on the arts, we've also focused on instructional improvement over time. We're very proud of our foundational reading scores that we have at Paloma, and we've been able to implement departmentalization at fourth and fifth grade, which

017allows us to differentiate for our students. We still see that there are a lot more opportunities and we're excited for the consolidation with KTA. We see the need for systems that help us personalize learning for students, increase acceleration, rigor, and challenge all of our students no matter where they are when they start at Paloma. We believe that we are very welcoming students and we want that to continue as we welcome the KTA community onto our campus. And finally, with the new increase in special areas allocation this year, we've already started working on specials opportunities throughout the day so that we can enhance what students receive in arts. So, Kyrene Traditional Academy. We were very overt and vigilant in the very beginning of our planning process back in 2010, 2011, that we wanted this to be

018a hybrid. We visited, as the planning principal, we had a planning committee, and we visited a lot of different schools over the valley, in Phoenix, and what we saw was that many traditional schools are very rigid. that students are sitting all day in desks, that they don't move around, that that was the belief system of when someone said, I have a traditional school, that was the model. And we were very cognizant of that and said from the very beginning, we want this to be a hybrid. So we've been very proud from the very beginning that KTA is a hybrid, taking the best of what classical traditional components are, but also making sure that there are times every day for collaboration, for cooperative opportunities. for all of those fun kinds of things. And when people would

019come to tour, they would come in with one idea of what a traditional school looks like, and they would leave with a very different idea. And we're actually very proud of that because we really wanted to be that hybrid for families. Some of the components that people think of when you think of traditional are in place. We do have a uniform student dress. We do have our Spalding for reading, writing phonics. We do have required homework. We have over the years had an elevated parent participation and very clearance consistent school-wide behavioral expectations. The Spaulding is one of those things that people think about. When they think traditional, they think Spaulding. They think phonics. They think those kinds of important opportunities for students to learn the basics. But we also incorporate... project-based learning. We incorporate lots

020of different reading strategies. Recently, over the past couple years, we've incorporated AVID. So there's lots of things that we add that make us different, and we love being that kind of different at KTA. Our classrooms do have... rows starting in kindergarten. They do have desks in rows, and that is kind of one of the things that people think about when they think traditional. But what's great about that is we conveniently can move those desks and move them into pairs and partners and groups of four and groups of six to do science and social studies and other kinds of projects. So we are not stuck in rows and desks all day long. I guess some people think that that is what it's about. But again, when they come and visit us, they see that we are

021the best of both worlds. That's how we like to think of ourselves, the best of both worlds. Because when students are in those rows and in that structured instructional framework, it's because that is what's best for that learning at that moment in time. For Spaulding, for example, there is a routine that you go through where students are learning the phonograms and they practice them and they have to repeat them back to the teacher. And it's best for the teacher and the student to see each other straight-faced, just like we are looking right now, as opposed to being sideways. or different ways where you might not be able to see straight on with the teacher and the students. So at that point in time, that is the best way for students to learn Spalding. Another point

022in time, they move their desk, they move their rows, and they're in a different kind of structure for learning. So again, we feel like it's the best of both worlds. In the beginning, this is how we started way back when. Again, classes were set up in desks and rows. We did use Saxon as one of our key resources. Spalding was required and all teachers were trained, K-5. We did have a junior grade books component that we used for enrichment and we had uniform student dress. Some things have changed. Some things have stayed the same. We still have our desks and rows, as I explained before. We no longer use Saxon. We still use Spalding as one of our key resources, although we now are combined and coordinate that with CKLA as a core resource as

023well. Spalding funding initially was provided at the district level, but again, with evolving budgets over time, we do still fund that and expect teachers to take that training, but that is through our 301 funding. We don't use junior grade books any longer, but we do have our uniform dress code. And we've added on our AVID component. We're very excited about that. And that's one of the pieces that Dr. Lake and I have been discussing over time, how much AVID really has been an important component in our instruction and just how we look at learning and how we help kids to get. a wide range of skills from kindergarten all the way through grade eight. So 90% of our teachers are fully avid trained. And that is another piece that I think we can come to

024resolution on. Some of our successes and opportunities. We feel that our hybrid model has been very highly regarded and highly received by families. Again, when I take families on tours and they see what that means and what that looks like in real life, they're always very impressed and really are happy with what they see. We are proud that we continue to have 100% staffed on Spaulding training. That's a two-year process for those of you who don't know. There's two different levels of that, and it's the summer before they start teaching with us, and then there's a follow-up the following summer, but it's very rigorous, and it very much coincides with the science of reading. We have been very vigilant about our AVID training and very focused on that, which has been a great add to

025our structure, to our culture. We too have very consistent PBIS implementation. We have decreased our major disciplinary issues even at the middle school over time. And we have tried and used different differentiation models. We haven't had one that has really stuck throughout the years, but we have been very open and tried different differentiation models so that we can support student success. where we see opportunities. We really want folks to understand the diversity of our demographic. We have over 20 plus languages and cultures represented, and it's really a value to our entire school and our entire community. We want to build upon the school-wide strategies and techniques of AVID. When I mentioned that to our AVID team the other day, they were elated. they possibly could continue that with the transition to our shared campus at

026Paloma. We love our rigor and the benefits of Spalding, and we hope that that can continue in some form. And again, open to and considering the differentiation so that we can together support rigor, enrichment, and acceleration for our students. We'd like to briefly share some of our demographics with you as well as our updated assessment data. We currently at Paloma, we have 397 students. You'll note that after a nice bump after COVID where we were very encouraged about enrollment, we've experienced the same declines as our neighbor schools. As you look at this slide and the next slide, another thing that you'll notice is the close similarity between our demographic data and that of KTA. It is almost exactly alike. We do have three self-contained cross-categorical behavior programs at Paloma, which bumps our students with disabilities

027just a little bit higher, but in every other area is very much the same. We are very proud of some of our... academic growth over the last few years. We do not just focus on the arts. We really try to embed all of our PD so that it supports both the arts and just good instructional practice. And we've done a lot of work over the last five years on foundational reading, on reading comprehension at the intermediate grades, and in math instruction. We're very proud that the last two years we've met. and surpass district goals for our strategic plan and foundational reading. Our kindergarten and first grade teams have hit 92% of students at benchmark this year, and our second grade team has hit 82% of students at benchmark with an average of 77 K-3. We

028have worked really hard on... working with students to embed active reading strategies in the upper grades so that students are critically thinking about the texts that they're analyzing. And we've seen some increases recently in reading in the upper grades. We still are, you know... have some challenges in math. We have done, we've incorporated some curriculum associates training with discourse and questioning strategies, as well as concrete models. And we've been stable in math over time. So that definitely is an area that we want to take some next steps with our students. When we look at our total enrollment and demographics, I'll start with the enrollment because we have seen, as you can see, a decline. I will be honest with you. We have seen a greater decline in the last four or five months since the

029announcement was made that our school was going to close. I just have to be 100% honest that families are now looking for other options for many reasons. have older siblings and they want to make decisions where those siblings can either go to the same school or they basically say, well, your school's going to close anyway. I might as well decide that now rather than later. So that has really been a bump. on the downward level for our enrollment over the past couple of months. We have a core that's sticking with us. We're happy for that, but that really has been a difficult, it's been difficult on our community. I mean, obviously, you've experienced that with the other schools that are closing, and we are in that place right now, too, where it's a difficult place

030to be. With the students that are here, we are vowing with Ms. Vester and with Mr. Gibson, we are working very hard that next year will be a wonderful year, a legacy year. We're calling it our legacy year next year to really put a mark on the 15 years that KTA has been in existence and to really celebrate everything that we've accomplished and all of the... points of pride of our school. We this year a point of pride is that we have brought our kindergarten DIBELS numbers way up. We are at 92% for kinder and our first grade is at 79% I think. We did have a little dip last year and those are coming coming back up but again it is it is difficult to motivate when things are in flux and our community

031is in flux. Our community is is in mourning. on some level. And so we are working through all of those things, trying very, very hard to keep it positive and giving them as much information as we can. And that's why this transition team is so important, because we really need to let my community know what it's going to look like and what pieces of KTA will be continued as we make these merges, what components can they still look for and see, and what components may or may not still be there. But we really... want to be able to share information with them so that they can make good decisions. We want them to stay, obviously. We want them to stay for our new iteration of our school. And the more information we can give to

032them, the better. And that's why this process, I'm so glad that we've been able to start it now because this information is critical to our families to make good decisions. On April 10th, the transition team, along with Mrs. Gingell, President Nelson, and Superintendent Tenias, visited two of the Chandler Traditional Academy schools, Independence and Carlson. Independence is a full traditional model that does not represent what is happening currently at KTAS, as has been shared by Dr. Lesher. It was interesting and eye-opening, but it's not something that has been a choice to implement here in the Kyrene School District. Carlson, however, gave us a lot more of an insight on some things. It is a two-track model that has both the traditional and classic approaches. The model does have inherent inequities with class sizes differing from one

033model to another, depending on how many students enroll in each track. Students are not tied to one track and can move out or in if they choose to do so. So they have that option to move. They're not locked in to one or the other. And it does create, we heard feedback from the administrator there, that it does create an us-them culture that stems from having that model. Carlson's scheduling model does allow students to mix outside their tracks for special science and social studies, but that model does require departmentalization. And both Independence and Carlson tout an accelerated model for their traditional tracks, working one grade level above in math and ELA. So we did do some reflections on that, and you'll see that come out as we move later into some possibilities for the future.

034So let's talk through some of the focus group work that we've done. The transition team started and we met to develop questions. We brainstormed those things that were relevant, things that we wanted to know as we were wanting to put. together, both getting information from the community, but also the relevant information that we could use to plan for the future. And we set those dates and times. On April 15th, we met with KTA staff at 1230 and KTA parents at 230. Then the next week, at those same times, on April 22nd, we met with Paloma staff and Paloma parents. Invitations were sent out to both staff and the parents. We held the focus group meetings. We introduced the whole process to those participants. And then we walked through each of the questions that we had

035for them, one question at a time. We digitally recorded so we wouldn't have to depend on a note taker or a scribe to capture that. We did digital note taking. And then we used those transcriptions of those meetings to start our analysis. Those transcripts were analyzed for themes and then themes from each site were compared for commonalities and things that were unique to each site. So this represents those themes that came from staff at both sites and then the common areas. The common areas for both schools are community. which is a strength and both sites, things that the staff spoke to, high academic and behavioral expectations, positive relationships, collaboration, rigor, and both staff groups mentioned a concern about a split community within us and them. They did not want to end up with a situation

036that landed us in that space. For Paloma, some specifics to Paloma Arts Integration with shared vocabulary, the onboarding of new staff being an important part of that, the deep connections that Arts Integration provides, improved retention and critical thinking skills, and then overall as a school, acknowledging and valuing diverse learning methods. KTA, as Dr. Lesher has shared, the modified traditional model, a lot of the staff are, well, I should say all of the staff are very supportive of the Spalding method, that shared vocabulary, but also that piece does require onboarding of new staff as well. They also mentioned that uniforms have a positive impact on behavior with... with one staff member mentioning that on days that they have the opportunity to dress down, that behaviors are a little bit different than the days that they have

037their regular uniform days. And of course, in this situation, concerns about losing their identity. And I think we see that with all of our schools that are experiencing closures. Just a quote from one of the KTA staff members here. When you require a certain amount of rigor in your school day, and I tell people this all the time, we truly learn bell to bell. That doesn't mean we don't have fun. It doesn't mean we don't do hands-on activities. It doesn't mean we don't collaborate. We do all of those things, but we are truly learning, exploring, and discovering either academics or social interactions bell to bell. And then here's a quote from one of the Paloma staff members. Our kids make deeper connections to the material we've been learning about because of the different activities we

038do with it. We see deeper level questioning from them as far as their knowledge level and the connections they make back to things they've already learned because they associate a movement with it or they remember doing this activity or this tableau that told the story. Their connections are so much deeper and their questions connect in so much more. There's a much more critical thinking level than just a base level. And I think it allows for kids to interact more with the information and then apply it like project-based learning. But also it's more than just words on a page or words in a book. They're manipulating and interacting with it. And I think that helps them have relevancy and connections to not just what they're learning, but other parts of the world and everything we talked

039about. As far as themes from parents, again, quite a few common things that came up with both parent groups. The family feel of both schools, and that's definitely, we'll get to concerns as well, but that idea that when we're bringing schools together, losing that family feel if it's a larger community. Involved communicative leadership, both sets of parents were very appreciative of the work that their administrators have done and spoke highly of both of them. The strong teacher-family communication, empowered students, high student accountability, high academic standards, the small school, and then behavior supports provided. At Paloma, there was a lot of conversation around the inclusive culture and individualized support for students. And then in KTA, the effectiveness of Spalding, the traditional classroom setup. the homework that builds discipline and routine, and then it's a very unique

040school culture as well. And then finally, just I wanted to connect some themes of concerns from both groups. The desire to connect communities before the transition. So I do appreciate that both. of the PTOs, PTAs have connected with one another and wanting to do some community connections even prior to the following year. Wanting to make sure that they do have an integrated community, that we come together as one and that we don't have an us-them on the campus. And then there were questions about names, mascots, colors, and branding, which really will follow the process of what does it look like. And once we move forward with that, we can take... further steps in that space. So in addition to the focus groups, we conducted a survey with families as well so that those who were

041unable to attend the focus group could share their thoughts. Oops, sorry, a little bit too far out there. The purpose of the survey was to understand families' priorities, what is important to them in their child's educational experience. We will take these values into consideration as we plan and develop for what the combined future looks like at Paloma. Before we get into what families told us, I want to give you some context about the survey and who responded. The survey was distributed by the principals at both Kyrene Traditional Academy and Kyrene De La Paloma to their school communities. It was open to any family who wanted to participate, so results represent families who chose to share their voice. The survey opened on May 18th and will remain open through the end of the school year. So

042for those families watching who haven't shared their thoughts yet, you still have two more days, and we would love to hear from you. So we may see a few more responses come in before the window closes, but to prepare for this presentation, we pulled data on May 21st. The remainder of responses will be reviewed and considered by the transition team at a later time, so today's data are the preliminary results. To date, we received 103 responses total, and looking at the donut chart on the left, about half of the respondents, 50%, have a child at KTA in an elementary grade, another 15% only have middle school children at KTA, and 36% are Paloma families. The bar chart on the right shows the breakdown of respondents by grade level, with blue representing Paloma and orange representing

043KTA. You can see strong representation across the elementary grades at both schools, with grades 3 and 4 having the highest response counts. The survey itself had three components. Families rated the importance of 14 different items related to their child's school experience on a five-point scale, from not important to extremely important. Then, for only those items that rated as varied or extremely important, they were asked to rank their top three. There was also an open-ended comment section. We'll focus today on the importance ratings and rankings, since those are most directly relevant to our planning conversation. The comments will be reviewed and themed by the transition team. I want to be clear about what this data is and isn't. This is not a random sample. It's families who are motivated enough to respond. That said, 103 responses

044across two school communities gives us a meaningful signal about what families value, and that's what we want to share with you today. Now I want to review the results, and I'll take a moment to explain how to read it because there's a lot of information here. This chart shows two things simultaneously for each of the 14 survey dimensions. The bars, orange for KTA families, blue for Paloma families, show the percentage of respondents who rank that item as their number one top priority. The lines show the average importance rating for each dimension on a 1 to 5 scale, again orange for KTA and blue for Paloma. So for any given item, the bar tells you how often families put it first, and the line tells you how they rated it overall. And to reiterate what we

045were asking in the survey, we asked families how important this topic or issue was to their child's educational experience. We were not asking how well they felt the school was addressing that issue, but how much it matters to them as a family. A few things stand out that I want to highlight. Nearly all the items had an average rating of over 4 out of 5 at both schools. So we definitely touched mostly on issues that families who took the survey value. The ranking question then allowed for a more fine-grained analysis. Case in point, caring teachers and meaningful relationships between students and adults was the highest rated item, but when asked to rank, only 20% of Paloma and 6% of KTA families rated it as the top value. The next notable item is an inclusive environment

046where all students and families feel welcomed and respected, which received a high average importance scores from both groups. For Paloma families, this was the most commonly chosen top priority at 28%. However, it was relatively low for KTA families as only 9% chose it as the top priority. As we think about welcoming KTA families into the Paloma community, this is something worth... paying direct attention to in communication and transition planning. High academic expectations was the single most top priority for KTA families. 29% of KTA elementary respondents ranked it as their number one. For Paloma families, 20% rated it number one. The average importance scores tell a similar story. KTA families rated it 4.53 on average, while Paloma families rated it 3.92. Both groups considered it... consider it important, but KTA families feel more strongly about it.

047This is a meaningful signal as we think about how to communicate the academic identity of the merged school. Teaching methods that support different learning styles has the consistently high overall rating, and KTA as well as Paloma families ranked it similarly as their top item, with KTA rating it at 4.54 in importance. The transportation and location items are the notable outliers in this chart. It has the lowest average importance scores of any dimension, 3.44 for KTA and 2.36 for Paloma, and low ranking rates. This is consistent with what you might expect given that both schools draw from relatively nearby neighborhoods, and it suggests transportation is not a major concern driving family sentiment about this transition. Overall, what this data tells us is that families at both schools largely value the same thing, strong academics, caring relationships,

048and an inclusive community. The differences are more in emphasis than in kind. KTA families weight academic expectations somewhat more heavily, while Paloma families emphasize inclusivity and belonging. These are not competing values, and that's actually an encouraging foundation for successful consolidation. We'll continue to gather responses through the end of the school year and can revisit this data if the picture changes meaningfully. But at this point, I think the signal is clear enough to inform how we talk with families about what the merged school will look and feel like. So on to our next steps. I started my school year off with this, sharing this with my staff, because at that time, none of us knew what the decisions were going to look like related to boundaries and transitions and school closures and everything that's happened that

049first half of the school year. And so I wanted us to keep that mindset that whenever we experience change, it's scary. There's a lot of other adjectives we can put on. put to the idea of change, but it's also an opportunity. And that's what we're finding as we go through this work. There are lots of opportunities, and this is an opportunity for us to do something amazing. So looking at a new iteration, a model is emerging from this work that capitalizes on the strengths of each site and the opportunities that come from developing this new iteration. As you see up on the slide, we're looking at an iteration that has a focus on academic rigor with depth, higher order questioning and thinking, academic discourse, text complexity, and high expectations for all students. Along with that,

050the path to get to that place, personalized learning experiences with a focus on individual strengths and diverse opportunities. And then doing that through flexible pathways, providing options for all students. And those pathways are not method or strategy dependent. And so that gives us some flexibility on what those pathways look like for students. And we would like to, again, inspired by the Carlson model and feedback from families, accelerated options beyond compact math at fourth and fifth, reaching back further to prepare students for those accelerated opportunities that we provide to them in the upper grades. And then really tying everything together, and Dr. Lesher mentioned this as a really encouraging conversation that we've had, is school-wide AVID implementation, so bringing Paloma, current Paloma staff into that mix as well, and that being the overarching umbrella that brings

051that together. Things to note, those... Flexible pathways do necessitate departmentalization, so that's a little bit different look as to how we provide instruction. And we are also excited to speak to the fact that AVID supports that pathway to apprentice. So when they go through that process, they would go on to their feeder middle school. Our intent is to work with the schools and AEE to flesh out the design proposal and present that to the board in the fall so that parents can be clear about their options when the next year's registration opens. I think Dr. Lesher mentioned their parents really would like to know what does this look like, and we want to be able to provide a clear picture for that. Foundationally, this iteration is still built on Kyrene adopted curricula. CKLA. iReady, Discovery

052Education Science, etc., which are being used currently at both schools as their foundation for instruction. So thank you very much, and now we would love to entertain questions. Thank you. This is a great presentation. Board members, do you have any questions or comments for our presenters? Board Member Walsh. Thank you. Very informative. As you work through the new iteration, have you come to a consensus on whether there's going to be a separate traditional pathway at Paloma, or will it be more of an integrated experience? And I know looking at what you just presented, there's still a lot to unpack. But there's some things that I heard from Dr. Lesher, like the emphasis on Spalding and the seating rows, even things I heard from families like Cursive, that may be unique to KTA. And I didn't

053know how much of that was going to be. You can kind of opt into a pathway, almost like at some of our middle schools, we have dual language pathways, where some kiddos are in dual language and some are not. or whether we think we're going to try to incorporate certain elements universally across the school. Does that make sense? Yes, and I'll respond if anyone would like to jump in, feel free. One of the things that stood out from staff and parents in both communities, wanting to really be careful about not creating an us-them. And so looking at those flexible pathways, I'll just go back to that here. if I can. Those flexible pathways, again, not being method or strategy dependent, I believe they can be woven into this new iteration. But what that looks like

054is still undetermined. I would be cautious to have a track where you're on this track or that track because of the fact that it does create some inequities. We saw that inequities in class sizes at Carlson. And so And it also creates some of that us-them. We want everyone coming to that campus a year from now to feel like they're part of one big whatever that is. We're still defining the whatever that is, but that's my caution there is to have two separate tracks. I really don't want us to set us up for that us-them place. Is there a concern that you've got maybe some kiddos from KTA who have an emphasis on phonics and learning and reading that maybe isn't as emphasized at Paloma and how that learning melds together or that some families

055really do like the consistent, predictable homework structure at KTA that maybe our Paloma families don't? value as much? And how do we meet everyone where they are? So first of all, I would say that there's an emphasis on phonics and those basic learning skills across all of our Kyrene schools, and it's very similar. CKLA is used as the foundation for teaching and learning at both schools. What we're looking at as being the big difference would be the use of Spalding to approach that versus the just the CKLA model. So that Spalding method could be, there could be opportunities for a strand of teachers to still provide those if that is desired by parents. I know most of us have a parent input forms where we... where parents can give that opportunity to say, this is

056the kind of environment I'm looking for. And I see that as a tool where we could collect that data and that information from parents if they're looking for that. And then having teachers that use that as a support tool certainly could be a possibility. The same thing with desk and rows. After doing some of this work, I walked around my campus and found that at each grade level, except for kindergarten, I've got teachers that have desks or tables in rows. That's just the way they teach. That's their style. And that's a stylistic consideration that could still be offered to parents. And I don't know. I don't have to ask Dr. Lake. But it's possible that that would also be, I mean, that may be happening at Paloma as well right now. Yeah. If I may,

057thank you, Mr. Walsh. One of the other things that we saw or learned when we visited the two schools in Chandler is absolutely, as Dr. Ely said, the tracks really created or kind of perpetuated the us versus them, whereas we were thinking maybe there could be more flexible implementation of that more in the differentiation. So for this... maybe during a phonics or a language arts time frame, kids might be mixed in different places, but then had different homerooms so that they could continue to be mixed up. Because once you start a track and you stay with that track, those kids stay there the whole time, and then they don't get to mix with other kids, and that becomes problematic, really. And that's what they told us at Carlson, that they were having some challenges with

058that. So if we would be able to do something with the... Spaulding components more as part of the differentiation and the plan for that. We're still working out obviously the details, but that's kind of where we were considering that might play in. Yeah, that's helpful. And I know there's families clearly that want the traditional experience, even if it's a hybrid form, right? We saw, I think Levine has a new traditional academy opening up in August. So there are families that still want that experience. But I also understand the tension of not wanting to have two pathways and the inequities. And when you're talking to our existing KTA families and inviting them to continue on with the program, we want to... I imagine we want to make sure that we're keeping some core elements that they

059really value. And I don't think that means... half the schools and uniforms and half doesn't. And I haven't heard that today. I'm glad that I haven't. But I think, you know, like you said, Dr. Ely, about the environmental forms and the assessments or even sometimes, you know, in K-5, we have like compact math where some kids, not for the entire pathway, but for a certain subject matter, may compartmentalize in that area. And that might be something to explore where we can tell our KTA families, hey, when you go over to Paloma. not next year, but the year after, there are going to be some of the key things that we really love and value about the KTA experience that we continue on without creating the inequities that you've identified. I'd also like to add the

060other really important piece of this, you know, when you talk about the personalized learning experiences and using the core curriculum is we have data and we have assessments that we're doing internally along the way to check what's working too. And so that's got to be at the forefront of while something might seem great or everybody likes it, if the data is consistently showing us it's not the best way for us to continue to do that, then we need to have that opportunity to be flexible. and make some different decisions depending. Sometimes it just depends on the group of students you have. Sometimes it depends on the teacher teaching it. So it does give them more flexibility to be able to make some of those decisions and actually use the data to drive those decisions. Yes,

061yes. And I'm glad that we're going to continue on with AVID and honor the work that our teachers have put into that because that's a lot of work. I also know a lot of your teachers at KTA have put in a lot of work to keep their certifications on the traditional piece and making sure that we honor that. time that they've put in as well is important. So I know you're all over it. I'm really happy to hear how far along you are on this. And Dr. Lesher, I appreciate your point on the timing, because I know... We have a lot of families that choose KTA, even though it's not their in-boundary school, and they have options. And they're going to start thinking about those options in the fall. And if we don't have a

062clear vision about what KTA is going to look like the year after, that's going to put those families in a hard spot. So I'm glad you're thinking about that timing and appreciate that. So thank you. Yes, we would like to have something fairly clearly articulated when we come back to you in September. Great. Thank you. Again, this was a wonderful presentation. I had the opportunity to go on the visits with the team and it was very eye-opening kind of witnessing in action, you know, the more traditional model and then Carlson's hybrid model and talking with. with the uh with the administrators there and just when we talk about kind of the two separate tracks like they said it was more than just like what students were getting in the classroom but how it kind of

063permeated the culture throughout the school like certain parents were prone to be on the pto and the way those things kind of surfaced at that particular campus. I'm really happy to hear, you know, the team came kind of back and talked together. And then that was supported by what the parents were saying in the focus group, that part of this work is how to create one new school community rather than more of more like two schools within a school. And so what does that look like? How can that be a cohesive experience for everybody? But I also really love because something we heard frequently on the tours was about acceleration and, you know, the rigor. And it was really interesting. I have written down here, you're talking about engaging students and deepening their understandings and

064then you can assess their learning. And I really love that because while acceleration is so great for so many children, I also think sometimes we accelerate to the point where we don't get the depth. And have the students really kind of take that in and with the arts integration component and the rigor with the traditional model. I think there's a lot of really wonderful opportunities here and I'm excited for the work. that you all are doing and what you're going to come back to us with in the fall. I especially really love your consideration of, yes, these kids are with us for K-5, but what's going to happen when they matriculate into Apprendi and Apprendi is an avid school and how do you start to prepare them for what that experience looks like as well?

065So I just really commend your forward thinking on this. So thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you, John. Oh, we've got one down there. Member Davis. Yes, I want to add my congratulations. Great process and a lot of hard work. I appreciate all that you're doing. I'd like to know a little bit more about the middle school kids. Do you see any special needs that they might have or how are they being dealt with, I guess, is what I'm asking. Thank you. Member Davis, do you mean my current middle school students and where they're going next year? Yes, and all the support that you're giving to your kids, you know, and to make them feel it. I put down the words inclusive and all the goals that you have.

066I know it's particularly difficult for children of that age. And I was just curious as to how they've been accommodated. Thank you, Member Davis. That's a great question. We are truly in transition with our middle school students. So our current what we are what we know now is that most of our current fifth grade students are going to continue with us into sixth grade. because they love our school and they want to stay and they want to kind of stay with us till the end and celebrate our legacy year. Our seventh graders are able to go into eighth grade next year and finish up. So they're kind of in a good spot. They're doing their normal routine of what they would do. Our current sixth graders and seventh graders are in more of a bit

067of a tricky spot because they... don't have as much, you know, they're going to have to go someplace anyway. And that really, we've had a lot of different conversations with families about what is best for their individual students. So we've really, that is a kind of been a very idiosyncratic family by family conversation, set of conversations, because some families have younger students that want to stay with us and are going to hang in with us. Others are saying, no, we're going to move to Apprendi now or whatever school they might be moving to because they want to. get that going now and make the friends and make the transition. So it's been very individualized, if you will, kind of planning for each family. We've had a lot of conversations, the teachers themselves, Ms. Vester and

068I have had a lot of individual conversations with families to help them make the best decisions that are for them. Does that help answer your question? Yes, I'm glad that... It's a priority, I guess is what I'm saying, because all of this is hard on all of us. And I know it's hard on you guys. And you're doing it, from my perspective, a sterling job. But and not but and. I want you to just, my heart warms when I hear Spalding, because I'm one of those old fogies who taught reading in first and second grade with Spalding. And there was a recent article in the New York Times that said the phonics wars are over. The phonics wars are over, Spalding won. No, the reading wars are over. Phonics won. That's what it was. Sorry.

069And as we've said before, phonics is an important component of CKLA. The science of reading is taught throughout Kyrene, and the teachers are learning those components and those strategies. So that is throughout the district. It's just a little different way of how you present it. But, of course, we do like Spalding. We feel it's very valuable. Okay. Thank you. The other thing I want to congratulate you guys on is just my, you've proven my real belief that if we talk to each other, we come out with solutions, you know, and I really love the way you all have come together and, and gone through some hard stuff. You're over there. I'm the short one who needs pillows under her for you to see me and me to see you. But I really commend your process.

070These aren't easy things to do. And I just I appreciate it. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Dr. Ely. Thank you, Dr. Lake. And thank you, Dr. Lesher. With that, item 1.3 is concluding the study session. Our study session is concluded at 6.01 p.m. We're going to take about a five-minute break, and then we'll come back for our public hearing. Item 2.1 is our call to order for a public hearing on the instructional time model. Our public hearing is called to order at 6.11 p.m. And I'd like to welcome to the podium Director of Academic Equity and Excellence, Dr. Amy Jinjo. Good evening, President Nelson, governing board members, Mrs. Tenes. I have, I'm here to... conduct our second public hearing on the instructional time model. This is required by state

071statute for us to be able to do remote learning and so I'm here to go through the presentation again with you this evening, answer any questions. that you might have. So instructional time model is required if a district wishes to offer remote learning. We can do so through an adopted instructional time model. School districts are allowed to use this time model to be flexible with how in-person instructional time is meant. We also are, as I said, are required to hold two public hearings and receive an approval from the governing board to allow this instructional model. This is a yearly process that we undergo, and it is granted by the Department of Education upon your approval. We do use our instructional time model currently for several reasons, one of which is our online students. We have

072a small group of students that are still working through when we decided to move away from the Kyrene Digital Academy. We went to a Kyrene online learning model, and those are a few students that we still have in that model that are continuing with that process with us. So in order to have something qualify as an instructional time model, it is equivalent to the in-person time that a student would spend in instruction. And there are several ways a student can actually do this. So students have the option of completing learning activities asynchronously. So something may be assigned either digitally or in... print format to a student. They will complete these because of extended absences of a week or more and they are typically requested by families or principals depending on the circumstances. Students can also

073use instructional time model if Kyrene were to offer courses that were independent study. We currently do not offer any of those, but we add this into our instructional model because in the event that we found something that we wish to do this with, we would have the flexibility to add that programming in to the model. We also, as I mentioned, use this as our online learning program for our Kyrene digital learning students. These are students that are taking classes completely online. They do not attend an in-person campus in the Kyrene School District. And then lastly, we have instructional time model for... basically an emergency scenario where if we have to remove students from a school building, either for public health or another emergency situation, something like the air conditioning unit has gone out in a

074school and we don't have the capability of instructing them in person, we can institute the instructional time model so that students can still be given credit for attendance and attend to academic practices, even if they're not in the building for whatever reason that might be. Excuse me. Their attendance is marked in a couple of different ways. If the child is attending online learning entirely through the day, they are marked present when they log into their teacher's online learning session. So, for example, if they have a Zoom session, they log into that Zoom session and the teacher marks them present for attending that session. If a student is entirely doing work asynchronously for the period of time in which they are absent, the teacher confirms their learning activities are completed and then students are granted the

075attendance. So a student would be marked absent for a certain number of days. They submit their work to their teacher. Their teacher approves that work, says it was completed to the satisfaction, and it is given. Then the attendance is corrected to say that that student was in attendance for that period of time. We ask that students have 10 days from the date of the absence to complete their work and submit it. And so that is part of the practice of those modules that might be completed. Lastly, the only thing about attendance is if a student is attending an online course but they are in a Kyrene school building, for example, we've offered online Spanish to students in middle school, those students do not qualify for the instructional time model. That is considered part of their

076normal day. They are on the campus while they are taking the online instruction, so that does not constitute an instructional time model. With that, I conclude the second informational portion of the hearing. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. Do any board members have any questions? Member Davis. Thank you. I missed the very beginning. Did you say there were two students who are... attending our schools? There are a few students that are attending. It's a handful. I think there's four or five students that are continuing to finish out their eighth grade year next year. Okay. I think we have 13 or so right now, but most of them are eighth graders. So we have just a handful that will be eighth graders next year. Okay. And is this program separate from

077any kind of special ed stuff that... Yes, it is not specifically a special ed program. If a student needed special ed services, that would have to be discussed in their IEP on how they would receive them. But we don't currently have any students that are special education students in that online learning program. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions? Since this is a public hearing, we also are allowed to take some comments from the community during this portion. And we have three comments addressing the instructional time model. The first is a student. We have two students tonight. So very proud of them for wanting to come and share with us about the instructional. So first, I will welcome Cole Inouye up to the podium. Hi, I'm Cole Inouye. Where do you go to school? I go

078to school. You okay? Okay. You got it? Okay. I can relate to it. There you go. Okay. I go to school at Mariposa, and I don't want to be in homeschool. So this gives you what? An opportunity to stay in Mariposa, right? Yeah. So you support it. Say, I support this model. I support this model. Okay. Say thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Cole. Next, we're going to welcome up Kai Inouye. Kai Inouye. I go to Mariposa. I don't want to be homeschooled. I want to stay at Mariposa. I support this. When I get a chance to act, my teacher gives me work, and we have, like, a set teacher, and we work on our work for three or four hours, and we get done the work, and then we give it back to

079our teacher when we're done. Thank you. Thank you. And then finally, we have Corinne, in a way. Okay. They just wanted to share a little bit of their experience. They are around a lot of, so we're here just to support this model that we learned about. We think it's wonderful. We get a lot of pressure to homeschool. We will not, we do not want to homeschool our kids. Our kids don't want to be homeschooled. And this gives us the flexibility. I think it's a great program. We don't want, we did COVID. We understand what it's like. We don't want to homeschool. So we. I do agree. I wish we knew about this sooner. I know it's a week or more, which is great. They haven't had long times, but I think if more families knew

080about this and teachers knew about this and schools knew about this, it really is a great flexible option that a lot of families are seeking. The fact that we have it here and we hope it passes today again. We're just here to support it loudly so that it does hopefully pass again and that our kids can stay in public school. do not want to get homeschooled by their parents. So thank you guys. Thank you. Are there any additional questions or comments at this point in time? Seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and adjourn the public hearing at 6.21. We'll be voting on this item later tonight in our agenda. All right. Item 3.1 is convening the regular meeting. The regular meeting is called to order at 621 p.m. at this time. All blue cards

081should be turned into the board secretary if you wish to speak to the governing board. Our meetings are held in public to conduct the business of the district. And as always, our board meetings are streamed live on the Internet. And those who can't watch the meeting live, there's a recording available about 48 hours online on our YouTube channel. Board agendas can either be obtained from the district office or the Kyrene website at least 24 hours in advance. Our superintendent, Laura Tinias, and senior leadership are with us tonight. Item 3.2 is roll call. Will board members state their name for the record? Cedric Collins. Bunny Davis. Kevin Walsh. Amy Satry. Trina Nelson. Let the record show there are five board members present. Item 3.3 is a moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance. And I would

082love if Dr. Mark Ely could lead us in the pledge this evening. Item 3.4 is our land acknowledgement. Kyrene School District acknowledges that our community of schools is located on the ancestral lands of the O'odham and Fupipash peoples who have inhabited these lands since time immemorial. With this land acknowledgement, the district formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by Native peoples allows us to be here today. And item 3.5 is the Kyrene Promise. We promise to provide welcoming, inclusive learning environments in which every student is honored, valued, and feels a strong sense of belonging and purpose. We promise to provide rigorous, responsive learning environments in which every student is given what they need to develop knowledge, skills, confidence, and a passion for learning. We promise to provide vibrant world-class learning environments

083in which every student believes they are empowered and prepared to make a meaningful impact on a rapidly changing world. Item 4.1 is a preview and approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to tonight's agenda? All right. Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda? I'm so moved. Motion by Member Collins. Is there a second? Second. Second by Vice President Satri. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Item 5.1 is the Superintendent Report. Superintendent Tenias. Thank you, President Nelson, Governing Board members, those joining us here in person this evening and listening in. I just have a few updates to share as we are wrapping up the last week of school here in Kyrene. I'm going to skip that one right there because you're going to see that slide a little

084bit later. So first of all, last week, members of my team were able to join Kyrene Del Pueblo Middle School Bulldogs for their A-plus School of Excellence designation from the Arizona Educational Foundation. The Pueblo Jazz Band, directed by Miss Arlie DuPlessis, performed beautifully as always. And student speaker Sabrina Pratt was also so eloquent in sharing her love for her school. So please join me in congratulating the entire Pueblo community on this accomplishment. Also, as we close out this school year, it's a pretty emotional week for those of us here in Kyrene as we say goodbye to three of our Kyrene schools whose buildings hold decades of memories for families past and present. These campuses have been far more than places of learning. They've been the backdrop for first friendships, proud milestones, and the everyday moments

085that shape a child's story. Each campus held a special farewell event so that community members, former students, and former teachers could walk the hallways one last time and carry those memories forward. I had the joy of attending Kyrene De La Colina's farewell carnival with my grandson, and I was also so touched by the turnout. Proof that these schools didn't just educate our children, they built something lasting in all of us. So I was able to attend two of the three. celebrations. I had an emergency on the other one, but they were all lovely. I heard they all had wonderful turnout and it was great. At Menides, I got to see some old colleagues that I worked with stop by. So just really, if you get a chance this week, stop by our three schools and

086say hi. Also, just a reminder as we enter summer break, I want to share with our community that Kyrene kids can enjoy free meals through the summer through Arizona Summer Food Service Program at our participating school and community sites. There is no sign up needed, no paperwork. You just show up and get a healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack during designated service times at over a thousand locations across Arizona. Families can learn more at the azhealthzone.org slash free summer meals. Please, if you have anybody that you want to share this with, you can download this slide and all of the information is there to share. My last slide's not showing up. You might need to refresh. Sorry. That slide was taken out. We added a slide. Sorry. We're going to fix that for you real

087quick. Give us one moment. While we're waiting for that slide, I don't actually have a slide on this other. One that I wanted to share, but I just wanted the board to know, I think I shared this in our board memo, but for the community to know, I'm so proud in our next meeting, we're going to be doing a strategic plan update, but I was able to send out, I do individualized letters and I sent out nearly a hundred letters, emails with certificates to our kinder and first grade teachers and interventionist for every kinder and first grade teacher that met the 85% goal. That's a lot of teachers. So that was really exciting. I got some lovely, it almost makes me want to cry when I think about some of the responses I got back.

088They were just lovely of people just appreciating, you know, being recognized. I also don't remember the exact number, but there were a significant number of kinder and first grade teachers that had 100% of their children at Benchmark. Big, huge accomplishment. That's a, you know, we'll carry forward later down the road for all of our kids as they're transitioning through. So that was really exciting. Just wanted to share that. You're going to see more of that data in our next meeting in the strategic plan update. But thank you and congratulations to all those teachers that met that goal. So I wanted to take a moment because we don't do this presentation every single year. So I wanted to just remind the board and the community about the process as we review class size targets every year.

089Every year, this time of year, we have a class or two that's looking like it might be over the target. We have some that are looking a little under the targets and we're monitoring all that. So I just want to share a little bit about the process. We shared this presentation last spring with the governing board, and this is one of the slides. It's actually two of the slides condensed into one slide so you can see what those targets are. They have not changed. School consolidation did not affect the targets. These are the class size targets that we have historically used. I think we're going on. four or five years now. So as we review class size targets for the 26-27 school year, I just want to briefly explain that process that we use to

090monitor enrollment and to make staffing decisions. So first of all, to the community, we always appreciate the questions and concerns that our families have regarding class sizes. We also believe that providing strong classroom learning environments remains a top priority for Kyrene. You've obviously seen the investment we've made, especially in our early learning. But class size ranges are established annually and aligned to both student needs and the district's strategic and financial priorities. Again, we have not changed these over the last few years as we've been able to maintain these low ratios. As shown on the chart, grades K through 2 continue to maintain lower class size targets, and our rise-up schools also operate with class size ranges reduced by two students from what you see on the... chart there. In grades six to eight, the range

091is shown apply to core instruction classes only. So know that electives will vary mostly because some of our electives actually need more students than what the targets would be, such as a band or orchestra. The district staffing committee works closely with our school leaders throughout the spring, summer, and into the school year to monitor enrollment trends. This cross-functional team meets frequently, sometimes weekly, sometimes twice a week during busier times of the year, and continues monitoring the enrollment all the way through the 10th day of school to determine whether staffing adjustments are needed. So it is important to note that spring enrollment, so numbers as they stand today, are often temporarily higher than what we see once school begins. As student withdrawals and enrollment shifts continue throughout the summer, you'll hear us use words like we

092get a lot of false positives right now. We have a lot of, it looks like we have a lot of high enrollment in some areas that we know we're going to see some enrollment drop off. Because of this, staffing decisions are made carefully and intentionally to ensure long-term stability while still responding to student needs. So when enrollment is above the class size range, so what the ranges you see here, schools may receive additional classroom support. Sometimes that support is provided through an instructional assistant, depending how far over you are, or sometimes it means we add an additional teacher, and we have done that. multiple times over the last few years. If you go to our web page and the link is here on the slide, you can actually see our class size ranges by grade

093level and when you click on each grade level you're able to see what the amount would be over to get an instructional assistant and what the amount would be over to add a new teacher. So this process has been used successfully year after year. And reflects Kyrene's timeless spending model, ensuring that staffing and budget decisions continue to prioritize and protect the classroom environment while maintaining high levels of direct classroom support for students and teachers. So right now, what the staffing committee does is if there are classes they have been watching, meaning we know we already see it every day, we get the data updated daily. It's in real time and they're monitoring those. classes across the district that are sitting at or above the range. And they're monitoring the ones that are significantly below the

094range as well in case we need to move a teacher. And so they'll watch that all through the summer. As we get closer to school starting, if we don't see those drops occur, then we'd be adding a teacher. So if you see a range such as in fourth grade, if 27 to 29 is the range. and we see a class sitting at 33, 34, and that maintains, and come July, they're still sitting there. Come August, still sitting there. Well, by August, we're in school. So come July and now, we would be adding a teacher. However, what the history shows, we also have that data. So while enrollment might look one way today, we have the historical perspective to show that historically, over the last five years, fourth grade loses. three to five kids by this

095time. I will tell you our staffing has been about 99% accurate every year, year over year. So we feel really confident in this process. I have members of our staffing committee here, which are mostly made up of everybody up here. And they can speak to any questions that you may have. But I just wanted to make sure, I think this is something we're going to start embedding every year this time of year, because we get a lot of questions about class size this time of year. And what we just want to tell people is, If you can be a little bit patient, it will work itself out. We would never allow a class size from 27 to 29 being the range for a class to sit at 34 when school starts. Now, every once in

096a while, it might have to be there because they can't hire a teacher or find somebody, which has happened. But typically, or every once in a while, we've had a decision made where a school has said, we don't actually want another teacher. We want to do a teaming model or we want to try something different. In those cases, absolutely, we support the school and the principal in making those staffing decisions. Any questions about that from our board? I have one quick one. So in the case where someone was making a determination around a teaming model or anything like that, how is that communicated to their school community? That is really communicated at the school level with the school leader. So if a school leader was making a decision. Now, when we went all school wide

097with Menides, that was a little bit different because it was a whole pilot and things we were trying as a whole school. But each. Each school principal has some flexibility in how they want to use their staffing. So you see some sites have departmentalization. Some sites don't have departmentalization. Those decisions are made at the school level with their leadership teams there, and that would be communicated through the school principal. The district would not communicate that. Board Member Walsh. Given the school consolidation that we're experiencing right now, has there been consideration to... adjusting these class sizes, or I see that we have the rise-up schools identified as already lower. We actually target two students less. Are any of the schools that we've identified here going to be subject to that lower class sizes? So, for example,

098you have Kalina and Esperanza merging. They are both rise-up schools. They will continue to see the two less. So millennial is a rise up school. They will continue to see two less per grade level in their target. So it will impact some, but not necessarily all in. the consolidation piece, but those are our two big ones consolidating this year. And again, you have Estrella being split between multiple schools and Menides is while slated to go to Murata, a lot of our Menides families are not necessarily coming from Menides, the neighborhood. They're coming from across the district. So they may or may not go to back to their homeschool. As we just think about, you know, investing in some of the programs, I know. This board gave some feedback to try to keep the dual language

099path on both sides of the 10. I think on the Ahwatukee side, that's Lagos. So just making sure that we're providing the supports. And I know you're monitoring those classrooms, but I think the investment in that program is key because that program is going to go through some changes with their middle school dual track going from Aki Mall to Centennial year after next. So making sure that we're supporting that program, I think, means a lot because we know the dual language program is great. We sent out some great marketing materials about it this week. And really, if you look at our class size, you have to be really careful. I think we shared this in our presentation when we did it. You have to be careful. Don't try to compare this to every other district

100because some people use ratios, which is very different than class size targets. You just have to be careful because what they do when they use ratios is it's not just your teacher to your classroom students. It's the number of adults. to the class, to the students. And so it makes the ratios look much smaller. You have to be really careful. And so it's not always an apple to apple comparison. But when you look at our actual class sizes, one teacher per number of students, we are significantly lower and have a really big investment. And I think. I may have to look at Mr. Herman for this. If he can remember off the top of his head what our K-2 investment is, it's over $2 million or $1.8 million. Does that sound about right? I think

101about $1.9 million. $1.9. I knew it was close to $2 million that it costs additional to have the class sizes where we have. And again, that's an annual ongoing expense. So great question. Yeah, no, I appreciate you monitoring it because I know our families are very focused on this. Thank you. Yep. One final question. And I know that you mentioned if you go to the site, you'll see where it tips over from classroom resistant to actual new classroom teacher. Is that something that's also communicated at the site level? Or is that something that would come from the district? Well, a particular group? Great question. It's actually in collaboration. So we will help support the school, but that would still come from the principal if they were adding a teacher. So I think. Was it last

102year or the year before? I feel like we added a teacher. Again, this happens every year where we're monitoring and it's fluctuating and, you know, we're responding in the moment and waiting for the actual enrollment numbers to sort of. flush themselves out. And I do believe at one of the sites, I think it might have been Monta Vista a couple of years ago, we had to add another teacher. Does that sound right? Yep. Erin usually helps and her team helps with the communication and then it does come from the school principal. But in that case, we did have to add another teacher where we've had other cases that we watched. We looked really high this time of year. And by the time school started, we were well below the range or at least two below

103the range. So while it seems like we might be four or five over right now, what we know historically is that doesn't usually maintain. And if it looks like it is maintaining as we get closer again to the first day of school, we'll make those changes. You also heard me mention the 10th day of school. That's a really important number for us. We will be moving teachers all the way up to the 10th day of school across the district. If we have a class that. for some reason was way lower than what we projected and we don't have enough kids to fill that classroom, but we have another, I'm just going to use kinder as an example, and we have another kinder classroom across the district that ended up being two or three over, we

104will move that teacher over to where the kids are. So our staffing has to follow enrollment. It's the only way that we can be fiscally responsible and really tight on our budget and stay within our timeless spending model. Again, those changes occur, but we'll monitor. We wouldn't wait till the 10th day in a case, for example, if a grade like the example I gave in grade four is, you know, the range is 27 to 29 and they're sitting at even above the classroom assistant range. So say they're at 32, 33 or 34 right now and come July, I'm not going to, I don't remember the exact date, but come, you know, mid-July, it's before school starting and they're still sitting at 34, they're getting a teacher. If it's mid-July and now they're back down to

10529, they're probably not getting a teacher. But if by the first day they jump back up to 30, 31, we might add an assistant. So it's that fluid that we just have to watch. But again, history has shown us there's a lot of false positives right now. We haven't seen all the withdrawals come through. We see them in the summer. They happen every year. And every time we hear, well, they're not going to happen. We know everybody's staying. Every time it happens, the data just shows that the families that are choosing to leave typically don't let us know until after school's out for sure. They're not telling us they're withdrawing right now. So we'll watch that. And then as the numbers hold steady, we would add a teacher. And usually we have enough teachers within

106the district that we haven't had to hire. It's usually we're moving a teacher because while we might over. have numbers higher in one area or one school, we're probably under somewhere else. So we have enough teachers to make that move typically within internal. I hope that it's explained. And I think we'll just start making this an annual presentation during our update. And that concludes my superintendent update. Great. Thank you. Item 5.2 is board member statements. Do board members have any statements this evening? Member Collins. Just want to express my disappointment with the State Board of Education cutting the safety grants from the schools. And of course, we're still on recess in the ledge and budgets are due. You were down here the other day, right? Remember Walsh? Budgets are due. Mr. Herman, when is the

107budget due? Like July 1st or something like that? There's actually a vote that'll happen June the 23rd. June the 23rd. But yeah, so I'm just really disappointed in a lot of the higher level leadership in this state. And I'm frustrated. That's why I tell people your advocacy cannot stop locally. You have to go to the Capitol because those are the people making the big decisions that affect what we do here. And that's all I have to say about that. Thank you. Member Davis. I want to underscore what Member Collins just said in spades. A lot. Vice President Seatree. I do want to add. I just want to add, we have great, not because I don't want people to think I'm crapping on our legislators in our district. We have great pro-education legislators. And we have

108one running named Armando Montero. If you don't know who he is, look him up. So our legislators in our district are fine. Talk to your friends, those who vote in other legislative districts. Talk to them about who they're voting for. Vice President Seatry. Yeah, I just wanted to say welcome to everyone who's here tonight. And I want to wish our community a very happy and restful summer. I know we're in our last couple of days here. I know my daughter's super excited. She's got just tomorrow and finals and then, yay, summertime. So if you have vacation plans or anything like that, I just want to say have a great time and we'll see you next year. Thank you. I had the opportunity to go to Kalina's carnival on Friday and as well today was the

109senior clap out for Kalina. This is just such a transitional time of year in so many ways for so many people. We have our fifth graders promoting to eighth grade. I mean, not eighth grade, middle school. And they're so nervous. They get their electives. They're so excited. They're going to be big kids. We have our eighth graders promoting into high school. And, you know, are they going to find their people? Are they going to they're going to learn how to drive? And it's so exciting. And, you know, and then we have, you know, our bigs who are. you know, these young adults now kind of moving, moving, launching out into the world. And it's all, um, very bittersweet. And while I was at Kalina today, you know, Kelly Brenner, who amazingly enough is celebrating 40

110years with the district. It's incredible. Um, you know, was there, Mrs. Piper was there and the kids were there. And it was so interesting. My, my son is graduating and just kind of watching him talk with the other kids who are now all taller than me. And it's just such a community. And they all, they all didn't go to the same high school. Some went to Desert Vista, some went to Mountain Point, some went, I don't know, other schools that had other colored gowns. I didn't know what ones those were. But just what an opportunity we have here in Kyrene to be a part of building future communities and these wonderful humans who... You know, they find their people as parents. We worry about the teachers. Are they going to get their homework? I fight

111about IEPs and all of the things. And in those moments where we have these big transitions looming, whether it's, you know, this was Kalina's last senior clap out. It was, again, very, very bittersweet. And what does that look like next year as they head to Esperanza? And what will that look like moving forward? But these kids are. They're just incredible. And the way that they embrace each other and create their own communities, no matter where they go, it's just, it's just such a gift. And I'm just so proud to be a part of this community with so many wonderful educators and families who just pour into, pour into our children. So with that, I just want to wish everybody a happy summer. And I know that next year, while unknown, is going to be full

112of so many wonderful things. And with that, item 6.1 is request to speak to the governing board. So per our policy, we invite the viewpoint of citizens throughout the district. And people can do that by filling out one of our blue cards at the provided sign-in table. And we can also allow people to submit comments electronically as well through a link set out in our board meeting notice. Those electronic comments will not read. over the dais will then be added to the minutes for future meetings. Statute prohibits the governing board from discussing an item that is not on the agenda, but we do listen and can request that staff follow up on any concerns. Because we value transparency and public input to ensure everybody has an opportunity to address the governing board. We have time

113limits set for each speaker. So if there are one to 15 speakers, you'll have three minutes each. 16 to 30 is two minutes and over 31 is you have one minute. We have a total of four public comments this evening. So everybody will be allowed three minutes. The timer will be located on any of the screens in the room. And then it'll go red when you have about 15 seconds left. When you approach the dais, please make sure to state your name for the record. And then we'll begin. Our first speaker is Samantha Pull. like a P, but it's a D. I was so, I was conflicted. I was like, there's like a tail at the end. Is it P or a D? I'm so sorry. You were close. Sorry. My name is Samantha Dole.

114I am a counselor in Kyrene. I've been at Baristas for seven years. This is actually my last week. So I thought I've been wanting to speak to you guys for a while. you know, now or never, right? So when I first planned to speak, it was months ago, honestly, but then the grant allocations came out for the counselors and the social workers. And in light of that, and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding that, I felt like I didn't really have a choice. I had to speak to you guys. So there's two things I want to address for you guys, which is first, the school counselors and social workers. Mr. Walsh, actually, you and I met, I think, about six years ago when you were touring one of our senators at Brees' and I got to talk

115to you a little bit and something that stood out to me and I even said to someone, I was like, this guy gets mental health. Like, he sees success isn't just dependent on our academics for our kids. It reflected, like, a leadership quality that I am glad you have continued to stay on the board and speak out for that. But right now we have a problem, which is our counselors and our social workers are getting cut. They're getting eliminated in Arizona. You're seeing with our grant funding. They're not extras. You know, we are not an added bonus you get if you get grant funding. We're a priority. We're the reason your students stay connected to school during the hardest moments of their lives. We're the first responders when a student dies in this district. We

116are holding together the tragedy of schools. We are supporting families through mental health crisis, through poverty, through homelessness. And we are carrying the emotional weight that students bring onto campus every single day. We pour our hearts every day into this job, and all we've asked is to be seen and valued. As I leave, I just want my colleagues to know that I see them and their sacrifices. The second thing I want to speak to you is on your FRC, which is your Family Resource Center. I know a handful of you probably know Irma because she is an angel walking on earth here, but she moves heaven and earth for our families. I can tell you she has changed fundamentally my school because she has given my kids food, helped with housing, stability, helped with jobs.

117Educating the whole child is fundamental in our philosophy in Kyrene, and we need to stay true to that commitment. Our children cannot focus and they can't learn if their basic needs aren't met. Your Family Resource Center is the key to those needs every day. With Laney's leadership over the FRC this year, I have watched it flourish and I have watched ideas that have come to life and been talked about for years come true. Irma and Laney are just gifts to this district. I encourage you guys, everyone on the board, to sit down with her and listen to Irma's visions and ideas she has for your district because the potential is already sitting right at your feet. Push for expansion, push for those ideas to become reality, most of which don't require money. I'm deeply grateful

118for the time that you guys gave me and my seven years in this district. And I have both my APs here from the previous year and now. One, it's their birthday. Happy birthday. I love Kyrene. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sarah Baumgartner. Hi, I'm Sarah Baumgardner, and I'm here today as a community member and a mom to three Lagos students. Our family relocated from Des Moines, Iowa in May 2025, and our main priority was continuing our daughter's Spanish immersion journey. And we have been thoroughly impressed by the academics and community at Lagos. I will keep my comments shorter than I anticipated in light of the comments just now and based on this afternoon's email. I do, however, take a large issue with the approach that has been conveyed. I firmly

119believe that staffing needs to be adjusted proactively and not reactively. If we are failing to be proactive, the students are the ones who suffer. In recent years, the class size in fourth grade averaged 24.6 students. My understanding is that enrollment numbers are currently 10% over the threshold for fourth grade and even more for fifth grade. I find it very hard to believe that the shift will be large with students wrapping up their dual language elementary years. Likewise, I find it hard to believe that you can simply pull a qualified Spanish teacher out of a hat last minute. The move to upper elementary school is a big adjustment, both academically and emotionally. Shifting students around is detrimental. Before coming here tonight, I reviewed District Policy 5-211 on class sizes, which reads the district is responsible for

120providing adequate staffing based on student needs, legal requirements for curriculum, and instructional delivery, along with budgetary resources. The policy is written in an overly broad manner. While I'm here today as a parent, I have been a practicing labor law attorney for over a dozen years. In reviewing collective bargaining agreements available around the state, the highest ratio I was able to find for a single student to teacher ratio was over 30. Without reviewing the underlying data, I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty from my experience that these numbers were negotiated with maximizing the educational benefit for our children. A maximum ratio of 22 to 27 was also proposed in Senate Bill 1296. The high enrollment numbers that Lagos 4th and 5th graders are facing not only takes away resources from the students, but it

121is also a burden on our teachers who already give so much to the district. This is without taking any IEP numbers into account. Overall, Arizona has continually had one of the highest, if not the highest, teacher-to-student ratios in the country. The purpose of the school consolidation was to ensure that the students in the Kyrene District were provided adequate resources that not only help meet state standards, but exceed them. Drastically surpassing the already abysmal ratio is a blatant failure. Failing to properly staff is another attack on the dual language program. And it appears to show the intent to diminish the enrollment numbers at an A-plus school. Again, I would like to see... the proactive approach here rather than the reactive. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dana Hinton. Good evening, everyone. My name is

122Dana Hinton. I'm a Lagos parent, a former Lagos PTO president, and a mom to a rising fourth grader. Tonight, I'm here specifically for 70 Lagos kids, kids who are still building confidence, kids who are finding their voices, finding their strengths, and in some cases, fighting challenges that many people will never see. The current proposal leaves 70 students with only two fourth grade teachers. That means classrooms of roughly 34 to 35 students. And I understand budgets are difficult. I understand enrollment shifts are real. And I understand that the district has shared tonight that if class sizes remain above 31, another teacher could still be added. But Lagos is not approaching that number. We are already there. In fact, we are about 10% above that threshold. So families are asking a different question now. If we already

123exceed that number, like Sarah said, if we already know that another teacher is likely needed, then why are we waiting? Because right now this feels very reactive instead of proactive. These are children that already exist. And this is not a future enrollment problem. This is... today's enrollment reality. Because when classrooms become this large, the children who feel at first are rarely the ones who need the least. It's the child that's struggling quietly with reading or the child battling anxiety or the child with an IEP or a 504 plan. The student who doesn't raise their hand because they are afraid to get it wrong. These are the children who get squeezed out first, not because teachers fail, because we have amazing teachers at Lagos. They're incredible. But because even the best teachers in the world cannot

124create more hours in a day. And there is a huge difference between a child being seen and a child simply being managed. Many students are thriving today because they were noticed and supported early. So we have to ask, what happens when the children who are doing well begin struggling? What happens when students who never needed intervention suddenly do? Because some costs do not disappear. They simply show up later. Prevention is almost always less expensive than intervention. And Lagos is unique. Our students are learning in two languages. Academic expectations rise in fourth grade and support still matters. The district has shared these decisions are being made to preserve the Kyrene experience. But for many families, manageable class sizes are the Kyrene experience. It's why families choose this district. It's why children needing extra support have the

125chance to succeed. And it's why parents like me are standing here tonight. Tonight, we are asking for clarity. Please do not wait for children to struggle before acting. We are not asking you to predict a problem. We are asking you to respond to one that already exists. Give teachers time to prepare. Give family certainty. Give students stability. Find those teachers now, not 10 days after the school year starts. We ask that you give these kids the support that they deserve. Thank you. Thank you. Our final speaker to eat this evening would be Allison Hopeman. Got to pull up my notes. Don't start my time. Okay. Hi, I'm Allison Hopeman. I am a parent and I'm the PTO president at Cerritos. And I just wanted to come tonight. I'm excited that I get to like close

126out the parent comments and kind of the school year by saying like. wow, what a year we made it. Um, it was a very difficult year, but I wanted to lend some encouragement in that. This year has brought a lot of people together. It has seen parents become more invested than they were before and start connecting with each other. So I am someone who, I was here last year advocating for class sizes at my school, and now I am connected to PTO and parents across the district because of the long range and because I was coming to board meetings. And it's really nice. It is nice to be involved when there is the art and music discussion going on and to understand how we can help. It is nice to be a part of the

127raises for the teachers that you guys have approved and seeing how those get implemented. I would love to see those statistics on the other side of where those raises went and how our teachers were benefited from it. And one of the things that just came up, I wanted to like float this to you was if there's any. data or what the methodology was for Akimel and Centennial. With Centennial going to Kalina next year instead of integrating them with Akimel. Because I know that Akimel would, I think I've heard from various parents that they would love to see them come there and we could start that integration instead of moving those kids to Kalina. That was just one of the things that came up this week. And I wanted to encourage you guys that parents are

128talking. They're getting invested. They echo your sentiment, Member Collins, on how can we get involved at the state level and further, you know, what we're doing for our schools. That was it. That was all I had to say. I wasn't going to talk about this, but then you talked about class sizes. And so I just wanted to advocate for a discussion about the model. We were here for class sizes. We actually got a third class for our fifth graders, and we are very grateful for that. We were on the other side of that, where when we got a third teacher for them in second grade, that teacher is no longer with the district. They lasted one year. They were hired in July, and they turned out. to not be ready for the Kyrene, I don't

129know, level of commitment. But it would be good if we could evaluate how that is done because finding teachers in July and moving them, it sounds like you have the statistics. It would be really helpful to see if we're losing and where those kids are coming from. So thank you. Thank you. Item 7.1 is our consent agenda. Are there any changes to tonight's consent agenda? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Member Walsh, second by Member Collins. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Item 8.1 is the instructional time model. Do any board members have any questions or comments? Oh, I have a comment. The instructional time model, I'm always, I'm just so proud that we do this and

130offer this. I know I have a family member with some serious health challenges and in their district, in their state, they don't have anything like this. And so my relative's child misses school quite a bit just due to health concerns and not being able to, you know, keep the household healthy. And so an instructional time model, not only for our families that came, you know. All different types of unique situations, but I think it really does allow for a lot of flexibility with a lot of different school experiences. So I'm just really happy it's something that we still continue to support and offer. And with that said, I will make a motion to approve the instructional time model for the 26-27 school year. Is there a second? Second. Second by Vice President Satri. All in

131favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. President Nelson, just on that point, I echo your thoughts and I just hope we can continue to make sure word gets out to families that this option exists because sometimes it comes as an unexpected need, but sometimes it's because families know they're going to be traveling in advance. And if they knew this option was in existence beforehand, they can partner with their school leader to do that. And I know our school leaders are amazing on that, but I'm not sure all of our families know the opportunity exists. And there is some balance of that because obviously there's some, if everybody chose to use the instructional time model, we could no longer use the instructional time model. So we do need to balance that it really is for these

132unique circumstances, that it's not just for. because I want to go to an instructional time model, or we would find ourselves in a situation that we would no longer be allowed to offer it. So, because basically then your school would be full, your district would be fully virtual. So there's a little bit of a balance there. A lot of it is us educating our school leaders, to your point, making sure that they're working with their community. when their parents come with a unique circumstance that they can say, we have an option for you. And I also think the teacher, so making sure that they're educating the teachers, because typically it's the classroom teacher that's going to be the first person to hear. Hey, I have a situation in my classroom. I have a unique situation.

133A parent comes to them and then they can say, we got you covered. But what we don't necessarily want to do is advertise to the whole district. Everybody going go on the instructional time model that wants to go just because you want to go kind of thing. We have to be careful that we just don't cross that threshold or we would not be able to use it. But when the teacher gets the email that says the student's going to be out of town for call it. you know, 10 days this month because of this, that, and the other, our teachers will know to offer this up as a possibility. Correct. That would be just fine. And we're working with also creating some additional tools, similar to when we have a student that goes on a

134health plan, if you will, that has some special accommodations. We're working on some additional tools now that this has been in effect for a few years that will help our leaders do that and our school teachers, our classroom teachers do that when they. have a situation and it'll help give them the parameters, if you will. Thank you. Yes. Excuse me. Oh, yes. Member Davis. Sorry. I just, based on those comments tonight, I, as an item for future consideration, I wonder if we could schedule some sort of discussion about the Akema Centennial, what Alison Holtman mentioned. Yeah, I think we can talk about that during the items for future consideration. I'm going to jot down a note just to make sure that we remember to add it to the list. Just to understand. Thank you. Anything

135else, West Residence H. I just wanted to, I know, I just wanted to, you know, give us props for the instructional time model because it is a good resource to have because unlike many, I'm actually a teacher. So I understand when students, you know, I had a student, you know, we just got out of school last week. She missed the last three weeks due to some mental health issues. You know, and of course, I'm flexible. I had to think about what I was going to say in regards to my colleagues. But I'm like LeBron on my campus, if you understand what I'm saying. So when I ask them for things, they typically tend to go along with it. And I say, hey, this student's having mental issues. Can we can we work with this student

136and their family? And everybody obliged that we work with them. So I'm glad that we have this because you're right. A lot of schools don't have this and more schools should have it. All right. Item 8.2, ESP, Meet and Confer Tentative Agreements and Redline Meet and Confer Documents for the 26-27 school year. Super Assistant Superintendent Lisa Gibson. Good evening, President Nelson, Superintendent Taneas, and governing board members. Typically, I'm going to start with ESP tonight. Typically, our ESP meet and confer season begins in like November, December. But due to a change in CASPA leadership at the very beginning of this year, the CASPA team meet and confer season started a little bit later and at the end of February. At that time, Miranda Woods was nominated KESPA president and Cammie Rice vice president. We had four

137meetings this year with the first meeting really focused on like the logistics of what a meet and confer team does in the process since several new members had never attended a meet and confer meeting previously. Our last meeting was dedicated to compensation, and that two of those in-between meetings were really focused on identifying priorities and telling the story of our priorities. So tonight, I am bringing forward three tentative agreements, with agreement number one being compensation, which the recommendation was a 2% lift to the salary schedule, which the governing board approved at the May 12th meeting. The second tentative agreement is just general language cleanup, which we do every year. And it's looking at outdated language to make sure that it matches our current language. We also had some language changes that were just to help

138clarify our leave practice. Agreement number three is the personal and ACA days. There were no changes to the document. to the meet and confer document, but the committee did agree to continue to discuss and study personal and ACADs for ESP staff. We did talk about that at the end of last year, so that was one of the tentative agreements last year, but since the committee changed so much and there were almost all new members for the support staff team, we identified that as a priority again this year, so that's why you're seeing it again. So at this time, I'm going to pause to see if you have any questions about the ESP meet and confer tentative agreements. Do any board members have any questions? All right. Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve

139the tentative agreements and the red line document for the education support professionals meet and confer team for the 26-27 school year? So moved. Is there a second? I'll second. Motion by Member Davis, second by Member Collins. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Item 8.3 is a certified meet and confer tentative agreement and the red line document for the 26-27 school year. Superintendent Gibson. This year, the certified meet and confer team identified six tentative agreements with number one being compensation. And after reviewing several compensation scenarios, the team recommended a 4% lift to the salary schedule to increase the starting rate of pay for new teachers and to help Kyrene stay competitive with our base pay for certified staff. This 4% lift was approved by the governing board on May 12th. Agreement number two

140is parent-teacher communication, and the team reviewed language regarding parent-teacher communication and discussed current practices across sites. The team recommended updating language regarding curriculum night to provide school sites the flexibility to offer either a virtual or in-person event. Parent-teacher conferences were also part of this conversation, along with starting and ending times for conferences and clarity around Friday early release day conferences. Agreement number three is support for consolidating schools. There were no recommended language changes in the meet-confer document. However, the team discussed concerns around the closing and merging of schools and created a document with suggested considerations to support working conditions. And that document was provided to the school effectiveness team for this year and then again for school closures for next year. Agreement number four is support suggestions for teacher workday following carpet cleaning. And the

141team discussed some of the difficulties of carpet cleaning following a break, for example, following a winter break or a spring break, and then the responsibilities of... when it falls on one of those breaks, the responsibilities of the teacher, especially when that's a teacher work day. As a solution, the team drafted a list of suggestions to improve communication to help alleviate some of the inconveniences of room setup. This list was also shared with the school effectiveness team. Agreement number five, the team revisited paid time off language since this was the second year of implementation and determined no changes were needed at this time. Tentative agreement number six is language cleanup, and the team reviewed any outdated language to ensure the language matches our current language, and then again revised the LEAF language just for clarity. So

142at this time, I'm going to pause to see if there are any questions about the certified meet and confer tentative agreements. Any questions? Member Walsh. Just a comment to commend you for focusing on supports for working conditions with the school consolidation, even though it doesn't impact the contract, the fact that the district's being very proactive and thinking about that, I think is wonderful. So thank you. Thank you. If there are no further questions, I'm going to invite Dahlia up to speak also. Daily Lighting KEE president, I guess I'd like to say a few words about the certified meet and confer team this year. Nothing too long. Thank you for the opportunity to address the board with these tentative agreements brought before you. Member Walsh, yes. A lot of our time this season was spent talking

143about how do we best support our schools that are consolidating, that are merging, because even though we may not have a section in meet and confer, it definitely is a working condition concern. Listening to the presentation by Dr. Lesher and the team coming together to integrate the arts plus the traditional, a lot of those concerns they brought up were the same type of concerns we brought up when we were talking about we tackled it with our best hopes and our worst fears kind of thing. And we got to some really great collaborative conversations. I think that was the overarching theme of the team this year is that we were... hugely collaborative with what we could bring forth, even if it was just simply suggestions on how to tackle future closures or how to help these

144schools that are currently going through this. So you also heard... about the teacher communications. And when you're thinking about curriculum night, when you're thinking about parent-teacher conferences, because we have these traditions that we do in Kyrene that we want to hold strong to, but we also recognize that we have communities that are changing, that are no longer attending events the way that they may have 10 years ago or pre-COVID. So we need to be mindful of that and also... give schools, sites, the flexibility in handling that, but staying true to holding those events, but holding it in a way that makes sense for your community. So again, I just wanted to come up and talk about the collaboration of the team this year. What you're seeing in this tentative agreements really does bring that out.

145So thank you. Member Davis. Thank you. Thank you both. Yeah, I've been very impressed tonight. As I said before, I just want to reiterate to the certified folks and all of you that the collaboration is very impressive. I love seeing it. Thank you for that. I'm also going to give a shout out to Dr. Jo Sherman, who is in the audience, because she helped facilitate the meetings. And she is retiring, and so she is no longer going to be facilitating the meetings. But she did an amazing job of keeping the team focused on our goals and really helping us come together as a team to work collaboratively. So thank you. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve? The certified meet and confer tentative agreements and redline document for the 26-27 school year. Motion

146to approve. I will go ahead and second that. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Item 8.4 is the Kyrene Administrator Council tentative agreements for the terms and conditions of employment for the 26-27 school year document. Ms. Gibson. The Kyrene Administrative Council met this year and is recommending two tentative agreements, with the first one being compensation. The team reviewed compensation scenarios and recommended a 2% lift for administrators on and off the salary schedule, which the governing board did approve on May 12th. The second tentative agreement, it was general language cleanup, which includes language to clarify employee leave of absences. And with that, any questions about the Kyrene Administrative Council? Seeing no questions, may I have a motion to approve the Kyrene Administrator Council tentative agreements for the terms and conditions of the 26-27

147school year document? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Member Davis, a second by Vice President Setri. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Item 8.5 is an update for our Kyrene Forward, our FY27 school consolidation update. Thank you, President Nelson. I have a whole team here presenting tonight, so I don't recall if we decided you're getting up to present or staying in your seats. They will do one or the other. There's quite a few people jumping in tonight. We wanted to provide a first of what I believe will be many updates to the governing board and the community on how our school consolidations are going. We have structured the presentation to be centered around our strategic plan and areas, our highly engaged people and culture, our

148optimal operations and resources, and our future ready schools. So you're going to hear a little bit about each of the activities happening in those areas. Before we get too far into the presentation, I did just want to share, in addition to the document that was mentioned during the certified meet and confer. The district created a Kyrene Forward handbook. You received a copy of it in your board memo. It's quite long, so I don't know if you've had time to read the whole thing. But it really is part of our commitment to ensuring a smooth and organized transition for staff, students, and families while positioning Kyrene for long-term strength and stability. It provides school leaders and all staff, teachers, ESP staff, anybody on campus with the guidance, timelines, and expectations. that are needed to support this

149work. The key areas that you will see covered in this handbook include actual classroom movements, so the physical movement of things such as curriculum, technology, actual facilities, furniture, things like that that have to get moved. There's a whole area on talent management. So that's about movement of people and positions. There is a whole section on defining a new school culture and what that looks like and how we bring schools together in collaboration and community. And then there's a section on communications. So this handbook went out to all of our staff that were impacted from the moves. Early March, I believe, mid-March, right around spring break time, it went out to everybody. I know KEA also previewed the document and gave some feedback. So we worked with all of our employee groups to make sure that

150we had everything covered in there. And that went out. Each department had a pretty big hand in this handbook. And for those that... haven't seen the handbook, it really has almost like a checklist. So if I'm a classroom teacher, I can go pull all the checklists that relate just to the work I need to do, but I still get to have a better understanding of the work that's happening across all of the areas. So we thought it was important to know that, but maybe... As a quick reference, I just want my checklist. I want to stick it up on my board. And I'm a check the box kind of person. As I complete that task, I'm checking the box and I can say that I'm done. So that handbook has been really helpful. Obviously, any

151feedback or any, you know, we're always looking for continuous improvement. So anything that we think from this first move round of three schools that we want to enhance or make better in the handbook going out for next year, we will do that. over this next school year. So with that, I believe I'm handing off to Lisa Gibson first to talk about our highly engaged people and culture and what that looked like when it came to moving people around. So I'm going to start the presentation tonight by talking about certified staffing. I'm going to separate it into certified staffing, support staffing, and then administrative staffing as well. And so in January and after the announcement was made to close schools, talent management, along with other department leaders, identified dates during the month of January for in-person

152meetings at sites closing in order to share the placement process for certified staff and support staff employees. Classroom teachers received a survey following the in-person meeting to identify their top choices for school assignment and grade level preference. Also in this survey, teachers had an opportunity to be placed in the unassigned pool if they didn't wish to transition to the site that they were merging with. In the same meeting, timelines for the placement process were discussed along with the placement process itself. We addressed frequently asked questions such as, will I know who the school leader will be at the site we're emerging with before my placement? Or another frequently asked question was, what will the bell times for this site we are emerging with look like next year? Department leaders at these meetings also address placements

153for special areas, resource teachers, self-contained teachers, SLPs, psychologists, preschool, academic interventionists, SCI teachers, counselors, and gifted teachers. In January and after the in-person site meetings, Talent Management met as a team with principals at sites closing and merging to discuss the certified staffing process and communication to staff regarding internal staff grade level moves. After this meeting, Talent Management worked with teams of school leaders at sites closing and merging to discuss survey information as well as how to build strong grade level teams while merging staff. For the placement of resource self-contained resource in preschool teachers, the director of ESS reached out to individuals to discuss their placement. SLPs, psychologists, counselors, and SEI teachers were staffed as they normally are and by caseload and student need, and special area teachers were placed according to school FTE. And then

154in March, and once school leaders finalized the classroom and grade level placement, talent management, along with the school leader, met individually with each teacher at sites closing to discuss their placement for the 2026-27 school year. And at the same meeting, we discussed the unassigned process with any teachers who did not receive their first choice of school placement or any teachers that did not have a grade level placement at the site that they merged with. For the support staff, the process was a little bit different. ESP also had a survey following the in-person meeting to identify their current position and their work experience. This spring, Talent Management and the ESS department together placed over 50 support staff employees at sites closing. All support staff employees at sites closing were offered a placement prior to the end

155of April. The goal was to begin the placement of all support staff after all certified staff had been placed, but when we had a vacancy or resignation, we were able to place employees as those positions became available. Some of the staff agreed to move to their new site prior to the end of the year, and when that happened, talent management identified someone to fill the vacancy at the site closing while the employee transitioned to their new site. Talent management provided employees with a position that was as close as possible to their current position. The employee had the opportunity to either accept that position or to reject the offer and to apply for other positions within the district. If there was a program relocation, many times the support staff transitioned with the teacher to the new

156site. So for an example, if a program, if there was a self-contained resource program that was moving to a new site and everybody could move along with the teacher, we just made that move as well. For administration, just really due to natural attrition, all school leaders were placed at a school site with the exception of one school leader transitioning to the district office next school year. And so the outcome, our goal this year was to find a home for anyone at a site closed, at the site schedules closed at the end of the school year and not to have a reduction in force. And we did meet that outcome. And now that we know exactly which sites are closing at the end of next school year, Talent Management will schedule in-person meetings with sites closing

157in the 26-27 school year earlier this fall. We have a school closure process in place, and we look forward to supporting staff at sites closing at the end of next year early this fall. And now I'm going to introduce Mason Mead, who will start with the next slide. Thank you. All right, so materials and operational readiness. Planning for the school consolidations, we focused on coordinated transition, staffing support, and operational readiness. Current efforts include partnership with a third-party moving vendor to support the coordinated transitions of classrooms, offices, furniture, and instructional materials from closing sites to receiving sites. The third-party moving vendor will coordinate moves for Millennial, Kalina, Centennial, Estrella, and Menides. The summer moving schedule begins June 1st with a tentative completion date of July 2nd. Packing instructions and materials have been distributed to sites with

158additional supplies provided as requested. All moved items will be tracked through a centralized Google spreadsheet. to support organization and accountability, and vendor-supported moves are being planned strategically and intentionally to maximize resources and reduce costs. For example, Millennial was next in line to receive new furniture. However, due to the closure of Kalina, the newer furniture from Kalina is being redistributed to Millennial to save taxpayer dollars. Deployment of dedicated district transition team to assist with program relocations and on-site operational support. The district transition team is supporting the relocation of community education and special education programs while also assisting schools with classroom setup needs. The district transition team will also provide additional support to the contracted moving vendor if timelines or workloads require assistance. Ongoing coordination with technology, AEE, and school effectiveness teams to support school readiness and

159transition planning. Departments continue collaborating to ensure classrooms, technology, instructional manuals or materials, and operational needs are prepared for staff and students prior to the start of the school year. Keep going backwards. Future Ready Schools. Good evening. I am sharing just a little information on, you know, basically our classrooms are filled with materials and Mason and his team is taking care of actually the moving of those materials. But we're looking at what exactly is going in the box. So we provided guidance for curriculum movement in March. And along with that, we also asked teachers to inventory all of their materials. So we knew that when we were moving something, it was a complete set. or not. This is actually the one thing they didn't need to box. They don't need to box their curriculum because our

160team is going to do that for them. We're going to make sure that the curriculum is there by the number of teachers at the new site so everybody has a complete set. That's the other reason for the inventory. So right now we're really just preparing for the curriculum movement. We're not moving anything until the end of the school year. As far as our libraries go, we know our libraries are filled with books. We are going to wait and address those until we get to the fall. That is not something that's critical to the consolidation of schools at this point, with the exception of the library at Colina, because we will need middle school appropriate books for those children. And then instructional materials and programs, those are things, or in program materials, those are the items

161in the classroom that are addition to the curriculum. In addition to that, it's the things in our CCD and our CCB classrooms that might be student-specific materials or equipment. That is all. They've been provided guidance on how to move all of those things as well. And then another update is regarding program movement. And as Ms. Gibson just stated earlier, teachers and administrators were notified of program movements as well as staffing assignments. So all of that was done in that January to March timeline. Teachers were notified and principals were notified where programs were going, either CCD or preschool, and staff was notified in that same timeline. And then what they're doing now is what everyone else is doing is they're preparing to pack. And they're packing and preparing to move. We will have all of our

162programs. Our preschool programs are the more critical ones at this point. Those have to be licensed by DHS. So we are working very closely with community ed. And their staff is going to make sure any new preschool room is set up so they can be licensed by the Department of Health Services. So that. is kind of where we are at here. I'm going to pass this over to Dr. Goode. I'll advance your slide for you if you want. And as you can imagine, this work is about so much more than physically moving materials and people as well in positions. It's about intentionally building a new shared school community. Our focus is to honor the history and the pride of each school while also helping our students, our staff, and our families feel welcome, connected, and

163clear about what is coming next. Throughout the spring, our consolidating schools have hosted welcoming events and also school showcases for both families and for staff. Our school leaders have been collaborating and providing the time and the space for our new teams to meet. And they have been listening and checking in with their staff throughout this transition. And as this school year does draw to a close and the next school year begins, that focus is going to continue to be on that successful transition. Our school leaders are planning on, right now they're busy planning for their first days, not only with staff, but with students, which is rapidly approaching as we know. They want to emphasize on the importance of building those shared norms for communication, collaboration, professionalism, and also revisiting these norms throughout the year

164while gathering feedback from their staff and their communities to build that positive school culture. The wording is grounded in the Kyrene Forward Handbook around honoring legacy, intentional welcoming events. Shared norms, that first year monitoring, but it also lines up with research and best practice, which emphasizes on belonging, emotional support, and proactive communication during school transitions. Building a strong school culture requires listening intently and with purpose. So focus groups are underway to gather feedback from both parents and students, or excuse me, parents and staff, with work underway to capture student voice as well in the future. And this feedback is being gathered not simply to just say that we asked, but it is being used to help inform our transitions going forward as well. This feedback will help us identify where our students and our staff

165might need that additional support and where our schools can be more intentional about building that sense of belonging going forward. And to provide a little bit of context about this slide that we have in front of you, over the past couple of weeks, our amazing talent management team and school effectiveness has been working with our school leaders to strategically deploy roving guest teachers and coverage across our closing campuses to provide some release time for our teachers to be able to help with that. So you could imagine just walking into campuses, if you've done that over the past couple of weeks, that there's a lot of action that's happening on our campuses in terms of getting them closed out. This slide right here is something that was provided to us from our guiding coalition and we

166wanted to share this recent update from them because they've been doing a lot of work on maintaining that positive district culture along the way and one of the initiative teams with the guiding coalition has been coordinating with volunteers to support teachers at the closing schools with packing and they're very pleased that their first events that occurred last week really were very successful. And they have more events that are scheduled for this week as well. And I wanted to read a direct quote that was provided to Superintendent Tenias and the team here, that we had 100% turnout at Kalina for its volunteers. They were super helpful and they knocked out a lot of tasks. Administration and the staff who were directly impacted are extremely grateful for the help of the coalition. So big shout out to

167our guiding coalition as well on that. And here's a collage of the photos that were provided to us along with that email. And I think at this time, I'm passing it back to Superintendent Tenius. And so if you recall, the governing board earlier this year voted to establish a goal that says by the final governing board meeting in June of 2026, the board will collaborate with the superintendent to develop a framework. for sharing updates on our three current consolidations and our three future school consolidation considerations with our board, staff, and community. So administration has put together what we're calling the draft framework for the board to start that discussion on what they would like to see in these presentations. We have identified the purpose is to establish a consistent and transparent process for sharing updates

168regarding school consolidations for FY27. and FY28 with the governing board, staff, families, and community. The structure we think that seems to work well is that we would provide regular updates to the board. on the school consolidation planning and implementation, planning to do a presentation similar to this quarterly. However, with any additional updates as needed, so should there be a significant milestone that occurs with the consolidations that we think would be important to get in front of the board in a board meeting, that we could do that in addition, but that at a minimum, you would have quarterly updates and in-board meetings, and that we also will continue to provide updates. as we already do to staff families in the community through our frequent district and school communications, different staff meetings. We're always talking about some

169of these items, our community councils, which are starting back up next year. And then, of course, we have our Kyrene Forward webpage, which keeps everybody up to date. The areas that we think... you know, should be included when we're providing an update is the staffing and employee support, our student enrollment and transition planning. So it's a little bit early to do student enrollment yet. We've given, I think, a preliminary report, your board memo, but we're not quite at the point, again, with the data fluctuating so much this time of year that as we get closer to the start of school, we'll provide an enrollment update. our facilities, technology, and moving logistics, our school culture and community engagement. And then, of course, should there be any financial or operational impacts, we will continue to provide updates

170on those. And then any key milestones and next steps. So this is a draft framework that we started. We had a really robust discussion. I did not put the other board goal on here, but you have another board goal that you established that has more to do with facilities planning. So we left that out of this framework intentionally so that we could keep that focused in your other goal. We have a little more time on that goal. There was a lot of discussion about does it fit in here? And while yes, it could, I think it starts. to muddy the waters a little if we try to embed it in here. So we felt that we should hold that. But again, that's for the board to have a discussion on. We thought this covered the

171key areas. It aligns to the handbook. It aligns to those big areas. Obviously, communication is embedded throughout this framework and that we would just provide regular updates. Again, we'll probably not wait. For an example, a milestone might be the enrollment numbers. As we get closer to the start of the school, it may not be time for the quarterly update, but it makes sense to come provide an enrollment update so we would embed those in when the data's there. And with that, I will hand it over to the board for any questions for the team that's here this evening and then how you would like to structure the framework. If you want to give us any feedback to take back and fine tune that, we can bring it forward. We did not discuss whether the board

172wanted to vote on the framework, so that'll leave that up to you. You do have a goal. But the goal was by the end of June, and that's coming really fast. I saw vice president's entry. Yes, I just had a couple of quick comments. Can we go back to side 11? 11? Yes, please. I just think we should sit with this page for just a moment. As soon as I saw this, I was like, I know we went through an extremely painful time period, but this is good news. It's hopeful news. And I just wanted to review this again. The fact that we had no reduction in fours and all our support staff are still placed and that this is all being done with empathy and care for our community is amazing. And maybe we

173can then. And I can too, is start the healing process because we're doing this as a, as all together, we're making it work. And I couldn't be more prouder of Kyrene right now. of everyone. So thank you. I will tell you, there was a lot of conversations before we even, you know, got to December that that was really important to our team. We watched and looked and learned what other districts were doing. And I will tell you, not every place has done quite the same thing, especially when it comes to our support staff. So we took a very different approach. A lot of places don't place. They just say those positions are gone. Apply for anything that's open. And we worked really hard. And I want to credit our talent management for the extra care

174they took to make sure that all employee groups, not just certified or just administrative. were really thought about. Doesn't mean everybody got exactly what they want. It does not. That's just not possible when you're consolidating. But it is a really big outcome to be able to say that we did not have to do a reduction in force. So thank you for that acknowledgement. I credit this team out here. Any other comments? I have some comments around the framework. Thank you. So that's... the slide 19, we wanted to go back to that. Thank you for putting together the draft framework. I think when we were coming up with the board goal, you know, this was really, at least from my point of view, kind of what we had in mind, especially with at least, again, quarterly,

175a bare minimum, but obviously, as you mentioned, if different things come up. anything significant, anything required a vote or our action would be brought to us much sooner. But I think the piece, and I also agree with the untangling it from the goal about the facilities, that's more, while this framework is about what is occurring in the 27-28 school year, my view of what the facility's goal is about is really how do we take the lessons we learn from the whole long range planning experience and become proactive as a board and have real conversations about facilities. So it doesn't seem like it's this thing that's creeping up on us. It's something that we're grappling with after, you know, the configuration of this board or even the board after that changes, there is some kind of

176process in place that we move through. to deal with those issues instead of, well, maybe it'll be okay and I'll get moved along. So I'm happy to see these kind of untangled here, but I'm happy to entertain if there are any other thoughts that other board members have about receiving quarterly updates or if there's information they wanted to receive more or things like that. Could we have the slide of the framework? Can you move to slide 19? Oh, I sure can. Thank you. So is there, you need to call on me. Member Davis. Thank you. Is there an opportunity for the board to actually discuss this? Any element of the, when we get updates, that's about stuff that has happened already when we're updated. Yeah. So because it will be an agenda item, we can

177have, again, just like this evening, whatever the presentation is, then there's an opportunity for comments, questions, feedback, a back and forth conversation, just like we would any other presentation. Should it be something that we're bringing to the board? We would not bring a board action during a quarterly update, if you will. That's more information. But possibly between those quarterly updates, if there's something that would require a board action, then that would be agendized as well. I know. Thank you for that. I sometimes get the feeling that I don't know stuff that's going on that I would like to know because it affects how we're dealing with our community. So I don't know quite exactly how to say this. As a board member, part of what I see, and I may be wrong on this, please

178correct me if anybody thinks I'm wrong on this, but I feel like I need to advocate. in some of these things for the community and at least have their concerns expressed and us be involved in this in the process before it's a fait accompli just so we know what's going on sometimes I feel like I don't know what's going on and I get asked questions and I go I have no idea you know and not that I have to give an answer about But I can't even say, for example, I didn't realize in March that something went out in March to the staff. I would love to have seen that, just so I know that that's all I'm saying. So when people, you know, so people talk to me all the time about a lot

179of things and I don't want to miscommunicate anything. But if I don't know that something has happened, then I can't say, oh, you know, it's being taken care of, you know. So not everything is done in a public board meeting. And so it was either it will either be sent in a supplemental board memo, a governing board memo, a board prep that I'm meeting with you and sharing that information. And sometimes those same things are shared in a board meeting, but not everything. just don't have the time to share every single thing. So we do, though, make sure that the board has all the information in those other avenues. So you've got to figure it's public board meetings, whether it's a study session. a board retreat, the regular meeting, a governing board memo, a governing

180board prep session, or what we call a supplemental memo, which means it's information that came before the next board memo is coming out. And I want to make sure you have it in a timely fashion. So you'll see it as a supplemental. And then every once in a while, you'll just get an email forwarded to you that I'm maybe sharing a communication that was shared with the district, or you get copied. multiple times from district communications. So I work with Erin and her team if something's going out and I say the board should be copied on this because you need to be aware of this, then you're also copied on that. So all of that information is shared. So was I the only one who didn't realize something went out in March? I may have

181been. I may have missed it. I think a lot of times there are things that go out like staff emails, like we get updates about, hey, here are the potential staffing movements that happen. I know that goes out. I honestly couldn't tell you when the winter was a little bit of a blur, but I know that we get those. And then when they come back to us in a board meeting in the spring. Like I know it tickles it in my mind, but I couldn't tell you the exact date, but I know that I'm aware. So it could be a situation like that where it's like something that seemed maybe at the time casual and now we're having a presentation on it. So it becomes more, oh, I wonder what board memo that was in.

182Is that maybe that's sometimes what I experience. But I don't know if anybody else does. I think for the purposes of this and the leaks for like providing a quarterly piece or the board updates, I don't know if there, I mean, if there is consensus on this board that we want to be proactive in that way and have that type of communication, that's something I'm fine to explore. I don't know that there would be consensus for that. Okay. I mean, I'm happy if there are others on the board who feel like they would like to be a little bit more. informed on the front end of more operational decisions versus more oversight and Superintendent Tanya Spree those at this kind of proposed cadence. Member Walsh. Yeah, I would just ask that we continue current practice

183of including the board on communications out to community and district staff, which I know you already do. The communication is going to be so important during this process. You do a wonderful job in this home with that. And I appreciate that when communications are going out to staff, you do. a good job of copying us as a board so that we see it and we see it going out. So if you could keep that practice in place, that would be appreciated. And typically what I do is if I'm available, I send it and say, you know, want to give you an update, this is going out or this went out. If I'm not available, somebody from my team is doing that on my behalf for you. so that it gets out quickly, so that you're

184not waiting because sometimes I'm just not available to get the message out. And so you'll see a message coming from some member of my team saying, I'm sending this on behalf of Superintendent Tenius to make sure that you're aware. Okay. Thank you. Member Collins. Yes, I would just like to piggyback. I know we say echo in here a lot. You know, we always use the same words, you know, but I want to piggyback what Member Walsh said. I like it how it is. And we talked about this, I think, in the last meeting where I spoke about how it's color coded. And so I my practice is maybe it's the teacher in me. I take notes on the board memos like I have a notebook at home that I dedicate just for hiring stuff. And

185I just write down the key points. Yeah, I don't write down everything because to me, everything is not. you know, what I need. So I write down the key points from the board memos. And even for my board preps, I take notes. You will, you know that, Superintendent Tennant, you know, I take notes. So, and that just helps me remember and just keep that in mind. Like, hey, okay, we did talk about this or this is what we discussed. I read that. Okay, so I am seeing that there isn't a consensus that we'd like to keep moving at the same cadence where Superintendent Tenius just kind of informs us of communications that are sent via either a member of the cabinet or her as more of an FYI. So with that, are there any adjustments

186to the framework? Do people want some time to sit with that before providing any? changes? Vice President Satri? I think it's comprehensive. I like the quarterly cadence. Member, I'm just trying to see if there's consensus. If there is consensus, we can go ahead and we can vote to adopt. If there isn't consensus, we can go from there. Yeah, I'm just playing, folks. Informal, we're not voting. I'm just, if we want to have more discussion, this is the time to do it. I know a lot of times people crave that up here. Trying to give the people what they want. I don't need it. I do think the facilities piece is going to be important, but I agree that keeping it out of this framework makes sense so that we don't muddy the waters on it.

187Correct. But I know that it's going to be an important part of the conversation. And it's one of our board goals that is going to be by December of 26. We have a few more months. And I think that allows us to have a lot more robust discussion about it because, again, I. I look at this as something to get us through us. I mean, just the board in general, 27, 28. But I look at the facilities thing as something that is much longer. Yes. Has a lot more longevity in it than, than that. I would agree. And I think it's going to. result in some board policy that could, you could see a shift in some board policy. I will tell you our team, which is giving us some time, which is really helpful,

188is developing some tools that is going to make that goal much easier for us to have these conversations. So it gives us time to get all of that created when we bring something to the board. I think. While that looks at capacity and where we might go down the road in the future with Kyrene and when this may or may not come up again as a conversation about school consolidation, there's also the whole piece about the facilities that are currently being closed. And we did not embed that in any of this because I don't think it really had to do with the consolidation to that degree. But I do anticipate at some point our quarterly updates will start. embedding that in there as well, that there could be some conversations about what are we doing

189with the schools that are closed. And so, but I think that's in the future. Yeah, I think that could be a future board goal that could involve the formation of committees, et cetera, to address that because it's going to be so key to get feedback. But I think for purposes of what we're focusing on now, I think this is comprehensive. Thank you. That being said, I would make a motion to adopt the proposed. Jordan, can you adopt it if you would like? Awesome. Just checking in with checking in with Mr. LL. I'd make a motion to adopt the proposed framework around quarterly updates for the FY 2728 school year around school consolidation. Is there a second? I will second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes five to zero. I do have one question.

190Would the board prefer that we, once we take the word draft off, we'll just double check the communications team. Would you like this on the Kyrene Forward webpage so that it's a public-based document as well? Yes. Great. Okay. We will make sure that happens. Thank you. All right. Item 8.6 is the governing board and superintendent handbook. Superintendent Tenias. Thank you. Oh, let me, sorry, switch to the next presentation here. So last, I don't remember if it was last meeting, meeting before now, it's been a little while. We had a retreat where the board provided some direction and guidance to myself and with the help of legal counsel, Jordan Allel, and our executive director of communications, Aaron Helm. We took that feedback and we have redlined the current. our governing board and superintendent handbook. I will

191tell you, we did not worry about formatting at all right now. We're going to clean that up later. We're going to put it in a whole new prettier format. So just ignore formatting. But what we did is we tried to redline anything with a cross through that we thought should be removed. And of course, redline anything we thought should be added. There are a couple comments in there as well. Mainly on the first page, it's mostly, you know, just dates and. Address will clean up. We're going to clean up the table of contents so that once this is done, the numbers align. So you might, although we didn't redline the numbers, you might see some red lines there. The biggest changes came on in your draft copy here, page two, under the purpose. We defined,

192we were asked to define the word community and it is defined there right underneath the purpose on the front end. In page on page three and page, I believe it was page three. It was a strikethrough of some repetitive language that you see right above that under board and superintendent norms. It was just repetitive. So we just took that out was the recommendation. There's a couple small like. I think grammar and errors on page five. It was taking out the old language about the word regulations. Our old board manual policy manual used to be called policies and regulations. It is now policies and procedures. So you can see that the board doesn't actually adopt procedures. So that first one is just policies. The next changes the words regulation to either protocols and procedures. There is

193also on page seven, some. Just language we caught under board retreat, it said study session, should have said board retreat. We added under special meeting that we can to address an emergency situation. That was some legal guidance that was given that should we ever need to call a special meeting for an emergency situation, we can do so. The agenda setting, I think, was feedback given from the board. We also took out any reference to board docs since board docs is going away. And we decided not to put a platform in there should the next platform go away in the future. but that the final agenda is made live at least 24 hours before the meeting. Usually we added because it's not always on a Monday if there's a holiday prior to the meeting. Board prep

194meetings, we also said usually conduct board prep meetings. I believe that came from some feedback from the board that while we don't always hold a board prep meeting, the other legal recommendation to make a change here was that board members, we took out that answering questions because based on the auditor general's, attorney general's, sorry, recommendation that we have to be careful what we're doing in board prep. It can't be a meeting, if you will. So we cleaned up that language and that, but the board may present some questions that you intend to ask in the meeting. And then on page nine, the words up to three minutes, because not everybody's given three minutes on public comment. Items for future consideration is that the document will be provided to board members in board memos instead of

195on upon request. And I believe page 11 defines, this is just a note for Aaron and I, that as I update my responses in the governing board inbox, that we're going to use the language right from here based on feedback from the board instead of saying on behalf of the board. It will be that the emails are being reviewed by administration. And that is it. Page what? Sorry, get back to page 10. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Page 10 was adding bullets H and I. The board memo is the avenue for communicating information to the board ahead of staff and family announcements when possible, and that the district will provide FAQs to the board when necessary to support community questions or concerns about district activities. I think that speaks a little bit to the conversation

196we were just having as well. And so again, H is already happening. I think we're just making it formal here in the document and I happens time to time. So there will be times when you'll have FAQs. I have a question. Yes, thank you for this. The district will provide FAQs to the board when necessary. What does that mean? So there have been times, I'm trying to think when we've done FAQs for the board and maybe... board member Walsh or President Nelson, you can think of a time when we've done that. If there's something coming up that's big that we know you're going to get asked a lot of questions about, sometimes we can't predict that. But when we do know that's coming, like. I will give an example on immigration information. We provide all

197of our school leaders information on immigration. We sent those same FAQs to all the board members so that you had the same information and could answer those same questions. That would be an example I can think of most recently this year. So when there's something that we're sending out to school leaders with an FAQ, almost always the board's getting those same FAQs because if school leaders are getting asked, it's likely you're getting asked. So if I'm just thinking about community questions, if I get community questions that I can't answer, is there some procedure that I... let you know. You send an email is what we've done in the past. Typically, I'll get an email from a board member that says, I need help answering this question. I think it's the example I gave in the

198retreat where let's say a question comes into you, whether it's through your email or just a call that doesn't come to the governing board inbox that I don't see. I'll have board members forward that email to me, or they'll say, shoot me an email that says. Hey, I was asked this question. Can you help me? Or even a text is fine too. I need help answering this question. And typically it'll go through me. And then if it's something that's talent management related, I'll work with Lisa to provide you an answer. If it's something that's legal related, I'll work with Jordan to provide an answer. If it's financially related, I'll work with Chris. So you may not get the answer directly back from me. It could be that I take what you send me and I

199send it to the appropriate person who's got the. the answer for you. And then they'll reply back to all of us that way, because most of what the board asks, I need to make sure that all the board members have the same information. So when I get asked a question, you notice in board memo, there's a section that says questions from board members. When a board member is asking me a question. I try to include that in the board memo that says, I was asked this question or a board member posed this question, whether it was in a public meeting or even in an email. I want to be sure you all have the same information. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Do any other board members have additional questions or feedback? All right. May I have

200a motion to adopt the governing board and superintendent handbook? I motion. I will go ahead and second that motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Item 9.1 is Board Committee and Conference Reports. Do any board members have any committee or conference reports? Member Davis. I have a concern. I'm on the KEBT board. as the representative of the board. And I'm going to be out of town and not reachable at the next meeting. So I didn't know if somebody would like to take my place or not. Mr. Herman, Mr. Allel. As long as there's a quorum that'll be available, they'll be able to, if there are any issues that come up, you'll be able to get filled in after the fact. I don't know that you're voting on anything at the next meeting.

201But there'll be a report. So the person like Deb perhaps will be giving the report about the meeting or there won't be a report. Depending on the content of the meeting, when's the next meeting scheduled? Is that in June? It's June 7th, I think. I can't remember exactly, but I'm not going to be reachable that particular day. Yeah, I don't know for sure if that meeting's occurring and what the topic is. Either somebody from the district would be able to provide an update on what the content was. And we've had board members who have been on that committee be absent or unavailable. So anything that would require a board vote or board approval would certainly be in correspondence in a board prep meeting, a board memo. We would make sure the board is aware of

202that information. And then we can always get you up to speed if you have particular questions or issues that you missed in the meeting. Either Deb or myself could do that to get you caught up. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that the board was aware that I wasn't going to be at the next one. Thank you. Item 10.1 is items for future consideration. Do any board members want to list items for future consideration? Member Davis, I have your one from earlier listed. You do? Okay. Thank you. Any others? All right. Item 11.1 is meeting dates. Our next regular meeting is scheduled for June 9th, 2026. And item 12.1 is convening into executive session. May I have a motion to convene executive session? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Member Walsh,

203second by Vice President Satri. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. I have a motion to conclude executive session. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion by Vice President Satri. Second by Member Walsh. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 3-0. Executive session is concluded at 9pm. Item 13. That was hours ago. 13.1 is adjournment. May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting this evening? I will second that. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 3-0. The meeting is adjourned at 9.01pm.