001Hey, bud. All right. Good evening, everyone. We'll be starting our hearing here in just a moment. All right. Good evening, everyone. We are starting our public hearing. Item 1.1 is call to order the hearing. Today is Wednesday, November 19th, 2025. It is 6 p.m. Our public hearing is officially called to order. This is our seventh of seven public hearings that the governing board is hosting to get feedback from students, from staff, from parents, and from community members on the proposed school closures and boundary changes. We're grateful for you to be here tonight. We're going to have a quick presentation from our superintendent about the proposed changes, but before we do so, do any board members have opening statements they'd like to make tonight? I'll just start with a note of gratitude with Thanksgiving next week.
002For some of you, this might be your first public hearing. For others, this might be your seventh public hearing. I want to say thank you to your engagement, to your commitment to the process, to your support for making sure that the result here is what's best for the district. The engagement that we've received from this community has been nothing short of amazing, and I am grateful that we don't live in a community where schools can close and nobody cares. I'm grateful that we live in a community where we want to make tough decisions like this. We're getting feedback from hundreds of people. So for those of you who are with us tonight and throughout the process, giving of your time and your energy, thank you. We appreciate all of your feedback, and we are taking
003it to heart. We're going to start off with item 2.1, which is our presentation on the proposed school closures and boundary changes. And then we'll move right into public comment. Superintendent Tenius. Thank you, President Walsh, governing board members, those here joining us in person and joining us online. I just want to say again, thank you for making time to be here tonight, whether to speak or to hear from fellow community members regarding the proposed school closures and boundary changes in the Kyrene Elementary School District. I am Kyrene Superintendent Laura Tenius, and I have just a short introduction. A year ago, the governing board voted to form a long-range planning committee to address the projected enrollment trends and maximize the use of school facilities. After seven months of study, the committee presented a recommendation to the
004board in September. Following a board review and early community feedback at the guidance of the governing board, the plan was modified in late September. Kyrene is now seeking feedback on the modified proposal, which will go to the board for a possible vote in December. December. Tonight we will show you maps as well as a proposed implementation timeline. Then community members who signed up to speak will each have two minutes to address the board. As a reminder, this is not a town hall with questions and answers. This is an opportunity for board members to hear public comment both for and against the proposed changes. Questions can be submitted on the long-range planning webpage and may be answered in a future communication or in an online FAQ. I do want to take a moment to acknowledge how
005difficult this moment is for our community. No district ever wants to have to close schools. By consolidating our resources, Kyrene aims to preserve the excellence that defines our schools and ensures fiscal stability for years to come. We're going to start with the elementary map. For the elementary, the proposed school closures are closing Kalina, Australia, and San Diego. We're going to start with the elementary map. Kalina, Australia, Milenio and Menedes in the 26-27 school year, closing Mariposa and Kyrene Traditional Academy in the 27-28 school year. The elementary boundary changes as a result include Lagos and Norte would have no boundaries beginning in 26-27, which means they are open enrollment only. Kalina and Lomas would merge boundaries beginning in 26-27, Milenio and Esperanza would merge boundaries beginning in 26-27. The Estrella-Lago super boundary is split between Monta
006Vista east of 32nd and Sierra west of 32nd beginning in 26-27. Menidis and Murata merge boundaries beginning in 26-27. Mariposa and Wagner merge boundaries beginning in 27-28. And Kyrene traditional is split between Brises and Paloma beginning in 27-28. For out of district, our Maricopa region students would be offered transportation to Monta Vista beginning in 26-27 and our baseline region students would be offered transportation to Ninos and Lomas in 26-27. There are no changes to Cerritos, Cielo, and Ninos have no boundary changes. These are the exact same changes. I just shared, but in a timeline view for the elementaries. As you can see, most of the elementary changes would occur next school year, including our out of district transportation changes and our dual language open enrollment no boundary changes. This is our middle school map. Our
007middle school closures would include Ocumal and Pueblo in the 27-28 school year. Our middle school boundary changes from the current boundaries would include Centennial's boundary. Our middle school boundaries changing to include Lomas, Esperanza part of Monta Vista South of Chandler Boulevard or Lagos DL Enrollment beginning in 27-28. miera range would include Cerritos and Sierra north of Chandler Boulevard beginning in 27-28 and Bresa and Paloma beginning in 27-28 and Kyle Middlesatos oraz Isaiah Boreavich. were part of Monta Vista South of Chandler Boulevard beginning in 27-28. And Delos and school's boundaries would change to include Ninos, Wagner, Murata, and Norte dual language open enrollment beginning in 27-28. For out of district at middle school, our Maricopa region students would be offered transportation to Centennial in 27-28, and our baseline region students would continue to be offered transportation
008to Kyrene Middle School and Centennial in 26-27. These are also the same changes just for middle school in a timeline view. All of the middle school changes would occur in the 27-28 school year. Thank you Superintendent Tanyas. With that, we will jump right into our public comment. So if this is your first hearing, I'll let you know how it goes. If you've been here before, you know the drill. We will invite everybody to come up to the microphone to address the board. You can adjust the height, so if somebody's a little taller than you or shorter than you, there's a little grip there on the stand. You can just move it to work for you. Thank you. Everybody is going to have two minutes to address the board. So in a regular board meeting, if
009you've got more than 30 people, we usually limit it to one meeting. But at tonight's hearing and all seven of our public hearings, given the gravity of what we're talking about, we are going to have everybody have two minutes to address the board. We are going to take speakers in the following order. Because it's school night, we want to hear from our students. So we're going to start with our students first. After our students, if there are any parents out here with young kids who want to speak we're going to make sure they have a chance to go next. I know at one of our prior hearings we had some parents with kids until like 1045. Thank you for staying. We don't want to do that to you again. Once we get through our parents
010with small kids, we will move on to all of our other adult speakers. So with that, I will begin with our student speakers. Before we jump into our student speakers, students, if you are speaking for the very first time, I want to say you are going to do great. Students. If you are coming back and you spoke before and maybe this is your second or third time, we're really glad to hear from you again. Regardless of whether you've talked to this board before, we want to say that we are so proud of you for getting up in front of this room and talking from your heart. And it's okay if you're a little nervous, but you're going to do a great job. So before we start off with our student speakers, let's give a big
011round of applause to all of our students. All right. Our very first student speaker tonight is going to be Mr. Connor Scott. Mr. Connor Scott. And he will be followed by Ethan Sinkin. Hello, governing board members. My name is Connor Scott. I am a fifth grader at Kyrene-Daly Marauder. A few days ago, I told my mom that one of my favorite things about Marauder is having friends in every grade, that everyone really knows each other. Little kids say hi to big kids. Big kids help little kids. And it feels like a second home. It's a place where you can feel safe and be yourself. I'm moving to middle school soon, and even though that's exciting, it's also a little bit of a challenge. I'm going to be a little bit more of a kid, because
012it's a big change. So I can only imagine how hard it is for the kids whose schools are closing and have to switch schools when they aren't ready. That's got to be really tough. If Marauder stays open, I want all the kids and families who might come to know we would welcome them. And I want them to know from a kid who goes to Marauder that it's awesome. Kids are kind there. Teachers care about us. And it's easy to make friends. Even the principal, Ms. Anderson, is super kind. She knows everyone's name. No matter what happens, I hope all the kids in Kyrene get to feel happy, safe, and included at school the way we feel at Marauder. Thank you for listening today. Thank you, Connor. Great job. You're a very good speaker. Our next
013speaker will be Ethan Sinkin, who will be followed by Hannah Speight. Good evening. My name is Ethan Sinkin, and I'm a senior at Corona Del Sol High School this year. But I attended Kyrene Traditional Academy from kindergarten all the way through the eighth grade. I even spoke at the board meeting promoting the extension of the traditional school system. I'm a senior at Corona Del Sol High School this year. But I attended Kyrene Traditional Academy from kindergarten all the way through the eighth grade. I also attended the K-T-A educational program through the eighth grade at K-T-A. Not only does K-T-A have a new and updated campus and a large STEM and art areas, K-T-A is the only traditional option in the Kyrene district. And it is my family school of choice. My sister is a fourth
014grader there, and we live in the Chandler School District. K-T-A's disciplined learning environment helped me be a successful student I am today. The emphasis on high standards, structured learning, family involvement, and diversity would not have been emphasized in a non-traditional environment. The skills taught in this traditional community helped me transition into a larger population of a school like Corona. It gave me the foundation and skills to become a more successful student. K-T-A was the first school in the Kyrene district to be nominated for an A plus blue ribbon and they won this award on their first submission in 2015. They're also an A plus rated school of excellence, a Spalding-iridicated school, and an AZ civic engagement school. K-T-A fosters a strong sense of community with its four Bs. Bs. Be respectful, be responsible, be safe,
015and be kind. It would be detrimental to the district and students community to take away the choice of a Kyrene traditional education. And families like mine and others will continue to look outside the district for this option, leading to an even lower student population. Thank you. Thank you, Ethan. Good job. Our next speaker is Ms. Hannah Speight, and she will be followed by Maya Ezell. Mayor Posa is so special and unique. I think she's a great example of how we can be a better school for our kids. I think she's a great example of how we can be a better school for our kids. I think she's a great example of how we can be a better school for our kids. I think she's a great example of how we can be a better school
016for our kids. This year, my first grade teacher Ms. пойд taught us how to code our Ozobot goodness go trick-or-treating. It was my favorite coding activity this year. Say Mayor Posa. Thank you, Hannah. Good job. Our next speaker is Maya Ezell, who's going to be followed by Mr. Andrew Miranda. Good evening governing board members, teachers, families, and community. You can hear the technology UT. I'm here to speak for my school KTA and why it deserves to stay open. My name is Maya Ezell and I'm currently in fifth grade. It's really important to me that KTA remains open so I can stay at the same school throughout middle school. You might wonder why it matters whether I attend seventh and eighth grade at KTA or Apprende. Instead I have ADHD and school hasn't been easy for
017me but KTA has become more than just a school it's a community. My teachers, classroom helpers, friends, administrators, and counselors have created an environment for me where I can succeed. Because of them I've been able to thrive, earn good grades, and even get into advanced math. At KTA I feel safe physically, emotionally, and mentally. I've grown more confident because the people who are here understand my needs consistently, and support me. I really rely on consistency at KTA and KTA gives me that every day. Please don't take away my chance to be a KTA legacy student. Thank you for listening and for giving me the opportunity to share my voice. Thank you Maya. We appreciate you sharing your story. Our next speaker is Mr. Andrew Miranda who we followed by Grail Baviau. Good evening Kyrene school
018board and community members. I've attended Kyrene traditional Academy since preschool and currently I am a seventh grader. My confidence and success in academics is directly related to Spalding advanced math and the AVID program that are part of KTA. These are paramount to me as a student but the most essential characteristic to me at Kyrene traditional Academy is our diverse community. The inclusive climate helps all students and staff feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. My teachers have always supported me and helped me appreciate difference. I know how helpful this is to kids. My brother attended three different schools before coming to Kyron Traditional Academy in fourth grade. It was here where he gained the confidence to do the things he never thought he could. I know this environment at KTA cannot just be
019transferred to another school. This takes time to build. We are more than happy to have others join us at this great school. Please, Kyron School Board, reconsider and keep open my grade A, Blue Ribbon, A-plus school run by Dr. Lesher, our National Distinguished Principal. Thank you. Good job, Andrew. Our next speaker is Grail Baviao, who will be followed by Finn Rock. Grail here. All right, we can come back to them. All right, our next speaker is going to be Finn Rock, followed by Ava Lorena Ayola. Hello, I am Finn. You probably remember me by now. I came here to give one last speech about school closures. First, I found Pueblo, the dream school for me to thrive at. The programs were perfect. The teachers were perfect. Even the landscape was perfect. Oh, and by the
020way, can you tell them in the theater program? And then, one day, my mom over there was driving me to school, and she tells me about the school closures. I kept telling her. I kept on asking if there was any way for my school to stay open. She shook her head. And then she said we needed to go to these meetings and have our voices heard. And that got me thinking, what's going to happen to my band program, my theater program, my teachers, and most of all, my school? Then, I kept on coming to these meetings. Then, the change of dates, 2028 to 2027, everything changed. I would be forced to leave Pueblo earlier than expected. I would have to finish middle school in a different school for my last year. And then, I kept
021on coming to these meetings. And that story ends here. So, please, make thousands of people happy, overjoyed, and save my other home. Thank you, Finn. Good job. Our next speaker is Eva Lorena Ayala. We'll be followed by Alana Estabrook. Good evening, members of the governing board. My name is Eva Lorena Ayala. This is... This is my third time speaking to you guys, so... And I am an eighth grade grader at Ockeymaw Middle School. My parents drive us to school every day because this school offers programs and a community that my home school cannot provide. We choose Ockeymaw for the middle school experience, not a K-8 environment. I want to say that we appreciate the work you have done, but it is hard to plan for my younger brother because everything has... has been revolving around
022the December vote. My parents have to change their work schedules and make sacrifices for better opportunities because they know how important this school experience is for me and my brother. It also is sad to see my teachers, who care so much about us, feel worried and discouraged. Ockeymaw is an A-rated school with strong enrollment. I keep hearing these numbers. Four hundred and sixty home boundaries... boundaries students. Two hundred and eight out of district students like me. And the lowest remaining capacity of all six middle schools. My family specifically chose this school after touring other schools because it already offered programs like AVID, culinary arts, agriculture, which I have taken for two semesters, and STEM opportunities. People say other schools can provide the same experience, but my mom would not have enrolled me... enrolled us anywhere
023else without doing her research. We didn't choose this school to wait and hope it becomes an A school, or to see if one day it would have the programs we wanted. We chose it because it already delivered success. Closing this school would take away opportunities, stability, and community for students like my brother and others who will rely on Ockeymaw. Please consider the facts, the data, and what it is doing to our families. Thank you. Thank you, Eva. Our next speaker is... Our next speaker is Alana Estabrook, who will be followed by Sienna Estabrook. Thank you for letting me speak. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I went to Mariposa when I was in kindergarten all the way through fifth. When I started getting older, I knew I had to keep those memories.
024But in fifth grade, something wasn't right. And that bond, I couldn't leave. I cannot move on still to this day. But if you are closing it, you're taking the most amazing... amazing... teachers I've ever had. And someday, I want to teach at Mariposa because I have been influenced by Mariposa teachers. Good job, Alana. Our next speaker is going to be Sienna Estabrook, who is going to be followed by May Lee. I'm a third grader at Mariposa. Please keep saying Mariposa because it is a good school. I love riding my bike to school and this won't happen if the school closes. Someday, I want to go back. And visit all the amazing teachers when I graduate. Thank you. Well done, Sienna. Our next student speaker is going to be May Lee, who is going to be
025followed by Kyra Lee. My name is May. I'm in second grade at Marada. And I really want to do band in Pueblo. So could you please keep Pueblo open? Good job, May. Our next speaker will be Kyra Lee, who will be followed by Rita Moulter. Hello, Kyrene community. My name is Kyra. And I'm a current Pueblo Bulldog and former Marada Monarch. Today, I want to talk to you about the effects of overcrowded schools. As you know, Pueblo is one of the smaller middle schools. But when it had around 900 students, which is not even full capacity, classes were around 34 students, which is larger than the district average of 30 to 32 students. Now, right now, teachers and students know a larger amount of their peers and slash students because of a smaller learning environment.
026And what about lunch lines? When there was 900 students, teachers were constantly being emailed that their students would be late for lunch because they had just sat down to eat. As one of the wise students pointed out at the Pueblo Town Hall, you are going to need more buses. Buses to and from Pueblo are already late. So add that to all the Pueblo or KMS students. Not to mention that Pueblo has the largest percentage of non-open enrolled students. All of them are in the middle of the school. And the Pueblo is the largest school on the east side, tying with Centennial on the west. It is really a neighborhood school. As a final note, I know you partially addressed this yesterday, but if any of you have done theater, you know how long it takes
027to put on a production. The school year simply does not have space or time to do additional productions and allow everyone who wants to help with these theater productions to help. Last year, our musical was Yer Edwina, and everyone who applied was able to help in some way, shape, or form. This can only happen in a small-sized school like Pueblo. Thank you. Thank you, Kira. Our next student speaker is Ms. Rita Moulter, who will be followed by Ashraf Ali Mir. I have a question for you. What would it feel like if you were a teacher and the board was going to close your school? Sad, right? If you do close schools, kids would be sad. Teachers would be sad. Parents would be sad. And principals would be sad. That would be so uncomfortable. It would
028be better to keep all these schools open for people to go. Can you keep working to find other solutions? If you need help with the numbers, my sister can help. She is really good at math. I'm still waiting for you to call me for all my ideas. If you do end up closing schools, my school would welcome new kids. I can turn around and tell them all the stuff they need to know. We can have fun with new students. I'm really impressed by all the kids I'm seeing at these meetings. Come join me at Murata. I love it there in Newwood, too. To all my teachers and staff that are here or watching at home, thank you for being my great teachers and staff. I love you. To all the board members, thank you again
029for all your hard work. See you next time. Good job, Rita. Well done. Our next student speaker is Ashraf Ali Mir, who will be followed by Sabrina Pratt. Hello, everyone. I'm an eighth grader at Kaivin Traditional Academy, and I'm talking about why this school shouldn't close. First of all, this school is really great. It has a loving and supporting community that helps me every day. All this community support helped me go into advanced programs, and the extracurricular activities are also very nice. I also want my siblings to also go to that school. And I've been here since kindergarten, and now I'm in eighth grade. So I want my siblings to also go to that school. I want my siblings to also enjoy the support they need. Like, I'm going to high school next year, and
030I was very nervous at the start. But now I'm very confident I'll do good because I have the support and community by Kaivin Traditional Academy. And I want my siblings to also feel the support to be ready for high school and throughout their life. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Ashraf. Good job. Our next student speaker is Ms. Sabrina Pratt, who will be followed by Mr. Spencer McElvain. Hello. My name is Sabrina Pratt, and I am a seventh grader at Pueblo Middle School and a former Mariposa student. Mariposa had the highest utilization in the 24-25 school year. Now, this year, Mariposa has the second highest utilization. These data points are not just numbers, but proof that families are choosing Mariposa and that Mariposa is working. Mariposa has a focus on computer science, which prepares students
031for the technology-heavy world that we have today. Mariposa also accepts all people, economically and culturally. We have even held a World Fair since the 2000s that celebrates students from countries all around the world. Through the years, we have represented over 40 countries. The amazing teachers and school culture is also an important factor to Mariposa's success. Weeks before the clap out, on the last day of fifth grade, my friends said that they weren't going to cry when they saw the teachers that they had been surrounded by for years. I was the only one that said that I will, that I will be that person who cries while passing by the kindergarten hallway. Meanwhile, I wasn't even there in kindergarten. I came to Mariposa in third grade. Funny enough, right as we walked by the first teacher
032we saw, Ms. Reese, they all broke out into tears. And it only took me a few seconds before I did, too. There are reasons Mariposa has a utilization that is so high. And by no means is it a mistake, but it is proof that Mariposa is working. Regarding my middle school, Pueblo, Pueblo is currently set to close in the 27-28 school year. This would mean that the sixth graders currently attending Pueblo would not be able to attend. I was the only one who was able to attend. I asked you to keep Pueblo open one more year so that all students currently attending, including the sixth graders, can complete their middle school years at Pueblo. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Sabrina. Our next speaker is Mr. Spencer McElvain, who will be followed by Luke
033McElvain. I'm a student from Kyrene Traditional Academy. I don't think you can close my school because it is a high performing school. It is a high performing school. I learned to read at my school and that is very special to me. Also, the teachers are also very kind and I like that. Thank you. Good job, Spencer. Thank you. All right. Our next student speaker is Mr. Luke McElvain, who will be followed by Emiliano Ayala. Good evening, everybody. Hi. My name is Luke. I am a student at Kyrene Traditional Academy. I am a fourth grader and I am a member of student council. Is it a big mistake to close KTA? First, KTA is a national blue ribbon school and an A-graded school. Our principal recently received the distinguished principal of Arizona. We are also a
034unique and very diverse school. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Luke. Nice job. Our next speaker is Emiliano Ayala, who will be followed by Saveal Hatta. Good morning, members of the governing board. My name is Amy Katz. governing board my name is Emiliano Ayala and I am a sixth grader at Aki Mall I am an out of the school district student which means I can commute every day my parents sacrificed for me and my sister every day changing their schedules for these opportunities I chose Aki Mall with my life after touring other middle schools and comparing programs we wanted the best gate classes which I am in academic opportunities and supportive community for me and my sister Aki Mall is an A rated school and the numbers show why we are strong we keep
035hearing these numbers 460 home boundary students 208 out of the district students like me the second highest enrollment in this district and the lowest remaining capacity of all six middle schools closing the school would not only take away unique programs but also disrupt friendship and our nonsense of our community I have built Thank you I worry of every day about having to go somewhere else for eighth grade I'm leaving my friends and then changing again for high school Aki Mall supported supports students academically socially and emotionally while also strengthening our entire district I urge the boards to consider the facts the enrollments numbers and the impact on us the students before making a final decision please support keeping Aki Mall safe and healthy and I hope to see you in the next school year thank
036you now thank you one and one now and assembly and my name is Samar open thank you 근데 deомiliano nice job thank you man our next speaker Seville Salehato will be followed by Tegan Schaffer Seville here couldn't read it Seville hatch hadn't come over yet to read Seville hatch thank you all right Mr. Seville. Hello my name is Seville please don't shush Mayor Pro Macha please don't shush Mayor Pro Macha The teachers are great the students are grade thank you Nice job, Seville. Our next speaker is Tegan Schaper, who will be followed by Lincoln Montfort. My name is Tegan, and I'm a sixth grader at Aukimaw. I'm in the dual language program. Most of my friends take a bus to school. With Aukimaw closing, the new boundaries would zone some of my dual language friends
037to Altadena, which is not where the dual language program will be going. This means that they can no longer participate in the dual language program. It also affects my friends and our siblings at Lagos who live in the Altadena's new boundary. They will not get a bus to continue in the dual language program. Closing Aukimaw hurts my friends who ride a bus. They will not be able to continue without transportation, and the new boundary takes it away from them. Thank you for thinking about all my dual language friends. Thank you, Tegan. Excellent job. Our next speaker. Mr. Lincoln Montfort, who will be followed by Maddox Buckman. Hello. I'm guessing you guys probably remember me by now because the businessman is back for thirds. I came here yet again to try and support Aukimaw and convince
038you guys to make the right decision and keep it open. There are two people that I would like to shout out as proof that Aukimaw is a devoted school with a justice devoted community. First, I would like to mention a teacher. Senora Romero or Ms. Roman. She is the seventh and eighth grade Spanish elective teacher. And the reason why I mention her is to point out devotion. First of all, she's an Aukimaw. Staying at Aukimaw for more than seven hours a day, five days a week, while managing her kids who I'm pretty sure also go to Aukimaw. I mean if that doesn't scream devotion guys, what does? On the student end of the side, I would also like to point out my friend, Aaron. Aaron, if you're watching this, yes, that means you. Aaron is
039a sixth grader who has the ability to go to Desert Vista to take ninth grade math. Yes, he's just that smart. You guys say that you that you're gonna judge this strictly geographically, correct? This is a geographical thing. If Aukimaw were to close down, people like Aaron would not have the ability to be able to walk over to Desert Vista to take their math class. Even though those kids have the potential, they just wouldn't have the geographic abilities. Aukimaw is a devoted community with even more devoted students. I'm glad that you guys let me up on here so I can spend my time talking. Thank you. Thank you, Lincoln. Good job. Our next speaker is Madoc Buckman who will be followed by Gavin Buckman. Hi, my name is Madoc Buckman. I'm a second grader at
040Mariposa. Why are you closing my class? I'm a second grader at Mariposa. Why are you closing my class? Because it's automatically same day as closing Mariposa. It's a very highly educated school and it has five A plus readings. All of them are in a row. It's very confusing and it's not fair that you want to close down the school. I know that there's not enough money, but just close less schools and let Mariposa be one of them you don't close, please. I have had five teachers at this school. at this school who have all educated me and helped me learn, read, and write, and many more things. Thank you. Nice job, Maddox. Thank you. All right, our next speaker is Mr. Gavin Buckman, and that'll be followed by Mateo. Hi, my name is Gavin, and
041I think that closing Mariposa might not be the best choice. It is the only computer science school in the district. Learning computer science is an important life skill. Also, Mariposa's after-school programs like Bolts, Running Club, and Reach Basketball are very enjoyable, and I think it helps students have more fun at school knowing they have these programs after it. I've had a lot of fun experiences at Mariposa, and I want my sibling to be able to experience them all, too. Thank you. Thank you, Gavin. Our next speaker is Mateo, who will be followed by Liam. Hello, my name is Mateo Porter, and I'm a fifth grade student at Cary Dillard. I'm not here to talk about the impact it would make on me because of Marada. I'm here for the impact it would make on my
042sister. Marada has helped my sister so much. She has so many friends, and moving her would take away her friends, and she would have to start over. The teachers have made such an impact on my sister, and yeah. Thank you. All right, thank you, Mateo. Our next speaker this evening will be Mr. Liam. I just love KTA, because they have, like, polos and stuff, and I like, you have to, like, you can't wear hats, and I like about, you have to wear, about, you have to wear socks, black and white, and you only are allowed to wear, like, a regular shirt on, and you only wear one on Friday. That's what I really like about KTA, and I don't want to get shut down, because it's a very good school, and that's it. Thank you,
043Liam. Good job. One last chance for Grail Bavio. Is Grail here? Oh, Grace, I couldn't, I thought it was an L. Grace Bavio. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who has found their voice. It has been hard for everyone. The board members, the families in Kyrene, and the students who go to the schools that are closing. Thank you, everyone who found their voice. Even just being here is finding your voice. Thank you. Excellent job, Grace. Thank you. Are there any other students that would like to speak tonight? Any other students? If so, yeah, come on up, sir. Just please state your name when you come up to the microphone. Thank you. Hello. My name is Julian Fierro, and next year I'm going to be going to high school. The border changes and closures of the
044schools won't necessarily affect me, but it will affect my sister if they do go on. I'm here to say that it would be the right decision to keep them open for not just my sister, but for everyone else here who loves their schools, their teachers, and their friends. Thank you for letting me speak here today. Thank you. Good job. Any other students tonight that would like to speak? Yeah, we've got one in the back. Come on up, please. Sir? Hello. I'm a broad from Caring Traditional Academy, and I'm in sixth grade. I was here from kindergarten, and it was a very good school. Earlier there, I got placed in advanced classes, and it was very helpful, and I actually felt like I was succeeding, and I was never nervous. Whenever I went to school, I
045was always encouraged to try, even if I was failing. I always got encouraged to try more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You can just push that down and bring it right to her height. Excellent. Thank you. Say my name first. Thank you. All right. Good job. Right to the point. Any other student speakers this evening? Yes, we've got all. Please, come on up, young lady. Come right on up. You are good to go. All right. Thank you so much. Any other student speakers this evening? Let's give one more. Big round of applause to all of our students. And whether you said a whole lot or whether you just came here to support your other students, we're so glad that you're here. And if you came up to the microphone, we know you're
046brave. So thank you for being here. All right. We are going to move on to our adult speakers. We're going to start off with any parents who've got small kiddos here. I do not know which one of you do with this pack of cards. So I would just invite you to come up. One by one and state your name and I'll pull your blue card out of the pack. We just want to make sure that anybody who's got a small kiddo here tonight has a chance to address the board before it gets too late. So come on up if you'd like to address the board. Yeah, please. I don't know anybody else. We'll leave it at this time. Hi, I'm Kate Zengraff. My family chose to purchase our home in Kyrene 12 years ago because
047the district is known for excellence. Our community prides itself on strong public schools. That's why these drastic cuts and the way this process has unfolded worry me deeply. Nearby campuses facing this, districts facing the same challenges are closing one to three schools, not a third of their campuses. What message does that send about Kyrene's strength or the judgment of its leaders? My concerns come down to one issue, trust. KTA is our neighborhood school. Even though we chose Murata, having a school and park at the heart of our community matters. A vacant building will hurt our neighborhood and property values. It's also troubling that KTA was expanded without projections to support it. If we build it, they will come. They didn't. And now we're repeating that thinking with the proposed gifted academy. I haven't met a
048single parent eager to uproot their child to be a test case, much like the innovation academy. Sometimes you build it and they do not come. Worse still is closing schools where families are coming. Schools that are thriving. How can we trust this process when programs that drive enrollment, like Murata's self-contained gifted classes, are on the chopping block? Next, middle school closures. We've been thrilled with Apprende. My daughter feels seen, supported, and known. Will that still be true with hundreds of schools? Yes. And hundreds more students added. There are already 60 students in her humanities block and 40 in her gate math class. Sports are already cutthroat. A hundred girls tried out for volleyball before adding Pueblo students. Finally, I do not trust our district's marketing efforts. Last November when I asked about an Apprende open
049house for fifth grade families, I was told none existed and the earliest tour was in January. After waiting two months, we were then casually asked if we were attending their open house the following week, an event never communicated to Murata families a mile away. All of that was forgotten. All of this leaves us disillusioned. The messages we're receiving do not inspire confidence in Kyrene's future. I'm asking you to pause. Do not close a third of our schools. Make targeted, calculated cuts. Show us your acting with precision, not panic, and help rebuild the trust that has been lost. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Dunn-Graf. Hi, my name is Marissa Diaz-Mejia. I am a parent of a student from Mariposa. I was not planning to speak today. I've never gone to any of these, to be completely
050honest with you. I happen to cross this district by chance for a business opportunity for my husband. We have a house up in North Phoenix, but have decided to live here just because it was closer for his job. The only reason I'm stating this, we were in the process of trying to sell our home out there so we can purchase one out here, but with the cuts to schools, and I don't know if we should do that anymore, because the whole reason of us wanting to stay here is our kids have been growing in the same school and that was my dream to be able to see all three of my kids go to the same school. I never got that. So I wanted them to have that stability of being able to go to
051kindergarten, graduate from fifth grade from that school, go to the middle school that's next, then go to the high school. So with these changes that are coming, if this were to happen, it kind of leaves us with, should we just go back to where our home is instead of selling? And what's even worse is we're putting our students in a situation where now they're gonna be in a crowded class, in a classroom. As of they are right now, there's already too many students per teacher. There's not enough assistance for the teachers. So we would be putting them in a situation where teachers are getting less assistance and more kids. So more jobs, I mean, more work even for them. They're already underpaid as it is. We're doing this parents where we're supposed to do, which
052is go out, vote for the override. We did that. We participate in the fundraisers to go ahead and help raise monies for these schools, but for what? For the kids still to have to go to now an overcrowded school. What makes this different from other school districts and compared to Phoenix then, if we're gonna continue to do this? So that's, I just wanted to give my two cents. So at least I knew I did what I could for my son and hopefully the schools stay open, purchase a house out here instead and have my daughter grow out here as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Robin Lee. I'm a current Murata and Pueblo parents. I have a comments from Paul Booth, who was a community member that could not be
053here tonight. I want to address what I believe is a serious conflict of interest in this process. When one demographer works for multiple nearby school districts, it's not just a technical issue. It's an ethical one. In a state like Arizona, where open enrollment and school choice mean districts directly compete for students and funding, those demographic studies shape critical decisions about school closures, attendance boundaries, and long range planning. A consultant working for more than one district in the same region holds inside information about enrollment trends, housing developments, and community demographics. That information can easily, even unintentionally influence recommendations that benefit one district over another. And even if no data is misused, the perception of divided loyalties is enough to erode public trust. Families and staff deserve to know that the advice shaping their school's future, is
054unbiased and based solely on their district's interests, not shared or influenced by neighboring districts. Using the same demographer across competing districts blurs that line and undermines confidence in the process. If this district truly values transparency and fairness, it needs to ensure its consultants are independent and free from any competing obligations. Our communities deserve planning decisions made with complete loyalty to the students and families we serve and no one else. Thank you. And with my last seconds, have we looked at cost savings at a school level? Amplify and iRadio are really painful programs to use as parents. And I'm sure those are really expensive and printing millions of copies of the school lunch menu every month. Little things can add up. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lee. Good evening, board members. I'm here tonight as a
055community member and a mother of two young daughters who will hopefully attend Mariposa Elementary starting in 2028. We moved to our home for Mariposa and our story is not unique. We are at the park all the time and I see and speak to other moms with kids my daughter's age and they're all saying the same thing, that they moved to Warner Ranch for the school. And I fear that closing Mariposa would be a blow to the Warner Ranch community, but potentially detrimental to Kyrene as families like mine are gonna have to make difficult choices if our A-plus neighborhood school is closed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And good job to your daughter earlier for coming up to the microphone. She was very brave. Hi, good evening. My name is Sanghee Kim. I'm
056here today, I've come to a few of these and I feel like a lot of us have shared the same sentiment. So this message is gonna sit a little bit different tonight. And I feel like the constituents that we're serving in a school district is the students. My son here is here with me tonight, not for sympathy, but as a reminder of who lives here tonight. And he lives with the results of the decisions that's happening. If this closure can't be explained clearly enough for him and the other children to understand, you have a lot of students in here that have showed up with real courage and some real solutions. And if they're not understanding why, what the fundamentals are as to the parameters of why those closures are happening, I think that there's something
057fundamentally wrong. Kids are resilient, but they are also smart enough to know when something doesn't make sense. So I ask, how do you explain to them directly, how would you explain to my six year old and maybe other students in here, why his school wasn't on the closure list before, but is now? How would you explain the parameters to them as to why this change is happening? And how do you justify a process that even adults are struggling to understand? I had a conversation with him in the car last, it was a couple weeks ago. He goes, mom, Menezes is closing. I said, actually, it's not closing. It's proposed to be closed. And he had to ask me why. I couldn't give him an answer besides, I understand there's a fiscal responsibility. Beyond that, I
058couldn't be honest to say where, why, how, those real reasons. So as you're thinking and making these decisions, think about how you're gonna explain it to these kids and to the students that are coming here to speak tonight. Thank you. Do you wanna say something? Don't close Menezes. Thank you, Ms. Kim. We'll take another parent speaker. We'll probably do a quick break at the seven o'clock mark, and then we'll keep on going. Please go ahead, sir. Hey, Christian Michael. I just got pressured to go talk up here with no speech. With everything going on, I can only think about a legacy. I come from New Arizona, Marine Corps town. I have a lot of friends that when I was in middle school and high school that would come in and out, and I actually see
059what they do to actually fit in. A lot of drugs, they get into infidelity, and a lot of things that are not really healthy for behavioral health. Representing KTA, when it comes to the middle school, my son has a support element. A lot of friends. We actually assigned, we actually assigned, are we? We actually look for KTA strictly because of the model that it has. The model is not really represented in most other places. We actually lived in East Mesa. We literally drove about 30, 45 minutes every day just so we could go to that school. It's ridiculous if you ask me because if it's resource management or the utilization of the resources that you have, I don't think you've exhausted all your options. I don't know what you've actually looked into, but we have
060parents here. We have a lot of knowledge. I mean, look at our professions that we do. We can definitely save the school if we wanted to. I mean, it's detrimental for their behavioral health, and that's one thing that I did when I served in the military. I never wanted my kid to go in and out of school because I know exactly firsthand what does happen. So with that being said, I really don't have anything else to say. There's no speech here, but legacy, that's number one. There's a gentleman here that said they want to have a home. It's their home. It's my son Robbie's home. When it comes to everybody else saying KTA, that's what we're going for. I'm just going to burn those 30 seconds. Anybody else have anything to say? I'm good. All
061right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Michael. Yes, please. Good evening, everybody, from the doorway in to Superintendent, Governing Board, and the doorway out. My name is Tamara Begay. I've been up here twice. Here's my son, Zaki Begay. He goes to Mariposa, so I'm here representing for my son and the community members here who are trying to keep Mariposa open as well. I say that closing Mariposa is going to be hard for us, my son and I, because we're up from the North Reservation. Usually, we'll go home and take our son to school, or we'll take our kids back home to school. But I learned the Kyrene School District was a good district. So upon that, my sister asked me to bring him to Kyrene. So I did. And being a community member of Kyrene here
062in the community, I feel like closing Mariposa would be something that all the schools shouldn't be closed. If it's low enrollment, let's work together and work on something to continue the school. My son has an IEP. Are you guys going to have openings for other students? Like I said, I did go to a school, and they did mention they'll be put on a wait list. Is that true? Are these kids that have disabilities going to be put on a wait list? Yes. And they go to another school. That is my concern, because at Mariposa, there is no wait list. I believe that these kids come first at all times. So we need to rethink about where we're taking our kids and the safety of our kids especially. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Begay. We're going
063to take a very quick break, about five minutes, and we'll be right back here. Thank you. All right. We are reconvening our hearing. It is 7.13 p.m. We're going to pick back up where we left. Do we have any parents tonight with young kiddos who would like to speak to the board first? Ms. Estabrook, please. Good evening, members of the governing board. I'd like to share a simple vision of the future. Imagine a young scientist developing a breakthrough in medical technology, work that one day saves countless lives. Now imagine that her journey began years earlier in an elementary school classroom where she first discovered that she was a student. And then she discovered her love for coding and problem solving. That beginning could be happening right now at Kyrene de la Mariposa. What many may
064not realize is that Mariposa's advanced coding and STEM programs are rare at the elementary level. They give students access to skills and opportunities that can shape their futures and potentially our world. These programs open doors for children, helping them build confidence, creativity, and a foundation for careers and fields that are growing rapidly. So we're going to take a quick break. We're going to pick up our phones. We're going to pick up our phones. We're going to pick up our phones. We're going to pick up our phones. We're going to pick up our phones. So first things first, we have to go through something like a 裡面 fest forum. It actually has to have a Americano out tastes Us. So whenever we have a we find this funny that we're going to walk through our podr
065community. So now we know where things in the life of recycling actually occur and where we need to talk about that as well in the future as well as겠죠 places as well. that draws in families to our district. Let's build up and market this specialty more. I urge you to prioritize quality, innovation, and the long-term benefit to our children and community. Please keep Mariposa open. Our students deserve the chance to build the future. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sesterbrook. Hello, I'm Emily Yen. I'm a Menidas parent. Tonight I'm joined by both of my kids, who for the first time in their lives have decided to become shy. But Penelope is a preschooler at Menidas, which also, shout out, Menidas is the only preschool that offers full daycare until 6 p.m. So I also want everybody
066to consider what the preschools that are left behind at some of these schools that are slated for closure are going to look like in that environment. You know, I came up here not really knowing what else to talk about at this point, because we've been to so many meetings, there's been so much information presented. I did notice that as of this morning, it seemed like the district had provided some other information regarding demographics, which is much appreciated. I do have a lot of concerns, though, about the fact that we brought up the district impact about over two weeks ago, and it's taken that amount of time, and then on the final day of hearings, without really any time to process or look at that information or widely communicate it out, we're left to absorb that
067and to sort of react to it in real time. My second concern with the information that was provided is, I don't think it's showing the picture of equity that you hope it does. I actually think that it does prove our point. I know that in the study session yesterday that one of the committee members brought up that, well, the way that you need to look at demographic data when you're talking about equity and impact assessments is home boundary students only. My concern with that is that if you take the counter-argument that, to say, if there's a school that is home boundary, minority is not the majority. That means, but it is a majority-minority school overall. That means that you have to look at it as, as a whole. That means that you have to look
068at it as, as a whole. That means that you have to look at it as, as a whole. That means that you have to look at it as, as a whole. That means that you have a significant portion of students of color who are drawn into that school, not because they live there, but because they are attracted to it for its culture, for programming, for other reasons, for resources. Those students are higher flight risk because they don't have that commitment to the school by living there. They are actively choosing, and so I just really question the logic behind some of these numbers and how we're cutting them. You know, the, I know that the board member, or, sorry, the committee member said that the investigations and the analysis had been done. Thank you, Ms. Yen.
069I would love to see that data. Show us the data, please. Thank you, Ms. Yen. Thank you. Yeah, she can absolutely say something. Young Ms. Yen. Please don't call my name. Thank you. See, she's not shy anymore. Thank you, Ms. Davia. Mr. Young, before we go, we're going to make sure the mic is working. Ms. Davia, did you want to go again? We'll get it turned on again for you. You do wonderful. I just want to make sure everybody watching can hear you as well. Test, test, test. All right, we got it. The encore performance, Ms. Davia. Here we go again. Okay, I'm afraid to touch. All right, so, take two. This has been a journey. From the volunteers who dedicated months on the long-range planning committee, to the superintendent and her staff who have
070spent time on this issue, to the many late nights that the board has been listening, Board President Walsh, your ability to make people feel seen and heard is a gift. To the families who are fighting for their schools with literal blood, sweat, and tears, I am in awe. Hundreds of people have stepped up to show that they care deeply about public education and the Kyrene School District. Looking around this room, however, it may be easy to forget the larger context in which we find ourselves. Arizona is a school choice state with a robust voucher system. And even some in the legislature and the highest levels of our school board would like nothing more than to see a weakened public school system. I am hopeful that this process has awoken a beast who will fight beyond
071this moment to strengthen public schools and Arizona education in general. But in the short term, I ask the board to consider, will this proposal, with a historic number of school closures, really serve to strengthen Kyrene? Or will this be a catastrophic change for the school system? Thank you. A catastrophic blow to public education in Arizona. This choice will be your legacy. Please consider it fully. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Davia. It was just as good the second time. Our next speaker will be Mr. Matt Young. Thank you. I just want to address the gentleman from last night that talked about the Title VI protections and the fact that the board only needed to take a look at the inbound students. I find this completely problematic, that the district, while on one hand, is completely okay
072taking funding from out of district students and families, and yet are okay washing their hands with any obligation to them when it's inconvenient for them. They should be really counted in their demographic data and look at the disparate impact that this is creating. This creates two classes of students, essentially, and the second is that the district doesn't get fully recognized as being truly part of the Kyrene community and flies in the face of the Kyrene's commitment to promoting equity. As I said before, closing bonitas and leaving a three and a half by four mile school desert in the middle of the district while clustering schools such as Cielo, Murata, and Breeces, which are all within one mile of each other, is not promoting equity. To be slated to merge with Murata, and to degrade our
073school, is not equity. I ask that the board focus on student equity as you said that you promised to do. If my words, you know, ring hollow, maybe numbers will. So I just want to share some of the results from a parent survey that we created. Sorry. Running out of breath. So in our responses, 50% of our responses rated very likely or likely to leave Kyrene school district if the bonitas were to close. 37.5% rated very likely or likely to leave bonitas if bonitas were offered to standard curriculum. The point is, we're an anchor and a destination for many parents for the location and the teaming model. Don't take us for granted. We're going to be looking for the schools that are the right for our scholars and the ones that we feel valued. Thank
074you. Hi there. I'm Tim Bolton and I have two students at Kyrene-Dale-La Mirada and I don't know much at all about running an education system. I do, however, sit in enough conversations related to planning, forecasting, and organizational transformation to have thoughts here and maybe some concerns. A restructuring of this scale requires a full business plan with a clear view of growth, contraction, and operating expenses. In these conversations, almost all of our focus has been around managing the expenses and the expense problem with limited conversation around growth and contraction. Families are already making decisions. I've personally toured schools outside of the district and in private systems in a direct response to the current circumstances. Closing schools might improve operating expenses, but it also drives churn, leakage, transportation costs, staffing delays, disruption, program loss, and long-term enrollment
075decline. These aren't side notes. They're major line items that require our utmost attention. Do we have our arms around how many families will leave before the projected savings we get based off of these changes have been implemented will be null and void? Similar to the gentleman that just spoke now, have we surveyed families to project and forecast our decline and our churn? The other component of this is there's also a change management cost. Staff, students, and families have been under sustained stress for at least six months and we should expect increased attrition not only from families but also top educators who feel destabilized by this process. Any credible plan must outline how we will retain and backfill talent and stabilize schools during this transition. Without a complete P&L churn modeling scenario planning you get this.
076Thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you, Mr. Bolton. Good evening, Governing Board. I'm Sandra McCalla and I have a son at KTA, Kyrene Traditional School. We're coming from out of district, from Tempe, and I took a long time to really select KTA as a school, one for its academics, its music programs, its art, the uniforms, and the school itself. I'm going to be the first to take a look at the uniforms afterwards because he loves the uniforms. He loves his school so much and it's just been a really difficult decision knowing that you guys are going to close the school and trying to figure out where I'm going to take them to that's equally as good as KTA. The teachers, the camaraderie, the sense of community, the strong academics, we just don't have that
077in any other school. We really don't. And they've left the house and they have gone on to middle school and high school and have noticed themselves single-handedly the difference between going to a traditional school and then ending up at a regular public high school. Just how far ahead they were in their educational system. So I just urge you to really keep the only traditional school in the district before you decide to close it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McCalla. Ms. Fautenolay. Hello, it's a pleasure. My name is Angela Fautenolay. I'm the head of the Closures as a Last Resort conversation. Think about what happens when you try to cancel your cable. Before they let you go, they send you to a retention line. They ask you why you're leaving and they offer solutions because keeping
078current customers is far easier and cheaper than finding new ones. In business, 65-70% of customers stay when someone intervenes. Public schools, of course, don't use that same metric but the same principle applies. When districts engage with families and offer better fit internal options, far more students will stay and they were less likely to leave. In the case of the ESA, pre-consolidation, Kyrene has lots of options and families aren't hearing about them. A family experiences unfortunate bullying due to not being able to afford appropriate clothing that their peers deem appropriate. Maybe they're going to be a better fit in a uniformed school. And you don't know because that family is going to make an emotional choice to leave to protect their kid when they don't realize that there's a Kyrene option of a traditional academy that
079would embrace them. A mainstreamed autistic student drowning in a large middle school, terrified of stairs, overwhelmed by passing periods, missing in-house services could be referred to Pueblo. It's a small one-story campus with an innovation autism inclusion program and services in-house. Problem solved. No ESA. Child stays in Kyrene. But if none of this happens and no one asks families why they're leaving. So when my own child left last year, nobody from the district asked. I've spoken to families that have left in the last 18 months. No one's asked them. I learned at these meetings. I learned that middle schools are the profit drivers of this district. But when you consolidate middle schools and push them above 90% capacity, before you begin enrollment initiatives, you choke off your growth potential. High capacity is not a sign of
080health when capacity prevents growth. Closures without a plan to fix enrollment is a death spiral for Kyrene. Closing schools is the easy way out. Doing the work, marketing, retention, program visibility, investment, right fit placement. This is how you build a stronger, thriving Kyrene. It's what your community is about. We don't want the closures. We want a fix. No closures. We do it first. Thank you. Are there any other parents with young kids that would like to speak tonight? Hello again. I'm not sure I can follow that act, but I'm going to speak really quickly as well. I want to thank you all for your time and attention to all of our voices. You've definitely awoken a Kyrene community. I was very touched last night when Board Member Walsh did follow up on the possibility of
081a smaller middle school. It's still a very popular request, and it's something I'm still going to strongly advocate for. Are there any plans to survey parents of Kyrene to ask, should the proposal plan be voted in, how many will leave the district? I'm very concerned it would be more than you anticipate. I would also like to summarize the timeline of a sixth grade parent. And I'm assuming it's going to be the same way a lot of our teachers are feeling at schools that are going to close. We did all the work late last year to find a middle school that would fit our needs, our values, our values, and our values as a community. For our family, it was school size, arts, and electives. We hit the jackpot with Pueblo and the amazing band and
082theater programs. July. We send our kids off to middle school with anticipation, excitement, and relief that all of our hard work and research paid off. August. I start to receive a lot of texts from parents and friends about the results of the long-range planning committee. Pueblo was never considered an option to remain open. I don't think I've rested since then. I'm very concerned about the future for our students. I have been researching, watching, all I can find, and panicking. September. We see the timeline. Pueblo will remain open until Finn finishes. Relief. But then concern arises. Will all of the programs we chose it for still stay intact for those two years, or will our teachers start leaving to secure their futures? I can't blame them if they do. October. Fall break. Pueblo is now going
083to close a year early. intact for seventh grade? Do we move in seventh grade? What do we do for eighth grade? There's been no clear plan for parents or teachers for where the programs they want are going. I heard last night that sports, we can create more teams. Wonderful. But what about theater? There's only so many plays and roles people can do. Please slow down. Consider more options. Could you please state your name for the record, ma'am? Could you just state your name so we have it for our minutes? Absolutely. Melanie O'Brien. Thank you, Ms. O'Brien. Any other parents with young kids who would like to speak tonight? Yes, please. Hi. I need to pick up a kiddo, so thank you so much. Kathy Mindeman, Kyrene parent of three, including sixth grader at Aki Mall.
084And I don't know, maybe after spending so many evenings together, we should all be on each other's Christmas card list because I feel like we have new friends. But over the last several weeks, this community has delivered clear and consistent themes. Quality matters. Families choose schools. I just, I'm so proud of all the families for speaking up of what's important. The strong programs, the places where their students feel they belong, not simply where a dot sits on a map. Middle schools are not interchangeable. Aki Mall has the strongest enrollment trend on the west side, demonstrating clear family demand. Consolidating too quickly risks overwhelming, overcrowding instability in environments that are not supportive of learning. Transitions matter. Students who would be moved for their eighth grade year would face the hardest possible version of consolidation. Entering a
085new building at the exact moment, students crave consistency the most. That has real academic, social, and emotional impact. Growth is coming. More than 1,800 new residential units are already underway in Ahwatukee, we talked about it last time, even modest projections bring over 1,200 additional students to the west side. Closing a middle school now, all that guarantees capacity issues later. Priorities matter. At last night's board discussion, I heard the superintendent comment multiple times that closing schools should happen first before pulling other levers to save money. When school closures become the first solution instead of the last, it doesn't send us a message that we are approaching this student first perspective. I'm confused by the reaction. Apologies for the distraction. I want to add I'm incredibly proud of this community. Night after night, parents, students, and teachers
086have shown up, shared their stories, and demonstrated to our Kyrene kids that their voices matter and are heard. And they're not laughed at. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mendenham. Are there any other parents who would like to speak tonight? Well, parents with small kids. You know I'm there with parents here. Yes, please. Good evening. Sorry if I'm catching anyone, but I have small kids at home. So my name is Sahar Osman. I am a parent, KTA parent. I'm also a KTA staff. I've been a KTA parent for the almost last three years. Obviously, I haven't prepared a speech and it's just because it's coming from my heart. I tried to write something, but it doesn't, the word doesn't come easy in this situation. We relocated to the US, to Arizona almost three years ago. And
087when we came, the first thing was what school? Because I have four kids from kindergarten to fifth grade. And you know, after a lot of, you know, I'm not sure what school I'm going to go to. I'm going to go to a different school. I'm going to go to a different school. I'm going to go to a different school. So, consideration. Okay, Kyrene. Although we come from outside of the district. Okay. We said, Kyrene, KTA, traditional academy, uniform. I love uniform as a mother. And as you know, in my country before, all schools wore uniforms. So uniform is my thing. I love the traditional system. And we said, okay, let's just try it for one year and see how it goes because we're new. Kids are new. Everything to them is new. I was scared.
088We were terrified. And we won't go back. We walked in KTA terrified, me and my kids and my husband. Now, three years, we are so confident. We're so happy to be at KTA. It's lovely. It's caring. It's professional. You know, I always said to the teachers, how can you do this? You know, how can you have all this heart to care for the kids, not just to educate them? Because as a parent, you know, behavior and, you know, learning skills, life skills is more important than education. Education comes, you know. And so KTA has all of these things. It's a home. And I mean to, now me and my husband, every time we want to talk about it, we don't know how to sit and talk about it, how to tell my fifth grader that
089she's going, you know, to go to middle school in a different school. She's just now, you know, got to settle down in a school. So it's really hard. And they say, you know, the home where the heart is, our home is KTA. So our heart is at KTA. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Usman. Yes, please, sir. Hi. Dear Kyron Governing Board Members Committee, please say Mariposa. Good evening. I'm Achyut Shrestha. I and my wife, Moni, are proud current and past Mariposa parents. And our son recently graduated from Coronadale High School. Please close only six schools next year instead of eight. This will provide less expense on transportation. And also, my daughter will be able to learn one more year from the best and high-performing school focused on computer and science. My
090daughter is always excited about Friday. Not that next day is weekend. But she gets to learn to code and learn computers. Number looks good. Anticipated of seven million savings in five years. Which is just around like one million per year. My daughter and students graduating from high-performing Mariposa school means these future high-performing taxpayers will pay tax on earnings from 10 million more annually to the city and school district. This will retain and even improve the neighborhood and the city of Tempe living. Please just do not go with savings, saving dollar amounts. Please review our request. And please save the future and our school community. Thank you. Please do not let the Kyrene School District and community synergies slide. Thank you for hearing us out. I would like to give this little remaining time. We all
091are very hopeful and very confident Governing Board will make good decisions for our Mariposide students now and for future. Thank you. Thank you. Any other parent speakers? All right. We're going to jump into our blue cards, then. Our next speaker will be Miss Catherine Peters, who will be followed by Renee Corey. I wasn't expecting that. Okay. Thank you. I didn't come prepared with anything tonight because you guys know me. We're friends. And just to echo what all of my other parents have said, for the past several weeks we've come here, we've spoken to you guys, and we've become a family. We've become friends and family, and we know each other very closely now. And so, you know, thank you for that, parents. And I just want to highlight again some things that I've told you
092guys in the past as far as for Millennial. And, again, if you didn't know, I'm representing Kyrene Down Millennial, the high flying falcons. And I just want to, again, highlight that the gifted academy doesn't seem like a very popular option. You've heard from students and parents that they may not choose a gifted academy. They would separate if they have multiple children, siblings, if one sibling is considered gifted and the other one is not. It would separate them. It would separate them from their friends. And it would kind of alienate them. Speaking to somebody last night, they made a good point that we don't live in a gifted world. We're an integrated world. So alienate them in that just gifted only is not reality. And, again, I just want to also highlight that we are the
093biggest, newest school. We have a lot of good upgrades. And back in 2000, when Millennial did open, those students did attend Esperanza. And it was the... The reason to open Millennial was to move those students from Esperanza to Millennial. So just something else to keep in mind. And, again, I just want to take the last seconds to say thank you. We've been here for several days, several hours. A lot of us have missed dinners with our children and bath times. I know I have. But it was for the good cause. And I appreciate you guys listening to us and hearing our emotions and all of that. So I hope that you guys make the right choice. And I hope that you guys are going to make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. Our next
094speaker is Renee Corey, who will be followed by Stephanie Kerr Robinson. Good evening, Superintendent Tenyes, President Walsh, members of the board. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'm Renee Corey, principal of Apprendi Middle School. First, I commend you for this tough and emotionally trying work. In situations like this, it's difficult to make everyone happy, but we all know this is necessary. I've either listened to or attended all the public hearings, and I'm both uplifted and disheartened at times. I've been a part of the school community for a long time. I've been uplifted by the students and parents who've spoken about opportunity and the students who've welcomed other students and families to their campuses. It's been tough for me to see how divisive this has made some, as I truly believe in one Kyrene and
095would send my own children to any of the amazing middle schools in Kyrene. This is my 11th year as principal at Apprendi, and the first few years we had up to 1,300 students. I preferred a larger campus as it allowed for more resources, both fiscal and human, which led to lower class sizes, increased collaboration among teachers in light content areas, and more diverse extracurricular and elective options. Our students are resilient, and they will adapt. And I see this as an opportunity for them to explore new friendships and experiences at the middle level. As a leader, it has been difficult the last few years, making cuts and dealing with so much less because of declining enrollment. I know this is not sustainable any longer. I also implore you to please, please do your best to make
096expeditious decisions. I know this is difficult, but educators are planners by nature. The not knowing, the last minute decisions, or even changes to current proposals will not only cause both anxiety and discontent, but I also fear it will cause many of our best educators to leave because of the uncertainty. We've already pushed back the dates for master scheduling, elective planning, and staffing. The longer this is drawn out, the more stress it will be on the students. The more time it will take to build the work that will cause for teachers and leaders. Thank you for listening and for your continued support. And for any families who may be new to Apprendi once the consolidations occur, I'm fully committed to working with our community and staff to ensure a smooth and successful transition. Thank you. Thank
097you, Principal Corey. Our next speaker is Stephanie Ker Robinson, who will be followed by Heather Vida. Good evening, Governing Board and audience. I'm a KTA parent. My daughter has been in KTA since she was in kindergarten. When we first had her, I was talking to people in the area, where should we go, what school should we choose, and everyone unequivocally told me, Kyrene School District. That's where you need to go. They have the best educators. They have the best schools. They have the best test scores. They have everything. When I asked specifically where in Kyrene my child should go, I was unequivocally told, KTA. We chose our home specifically to be close to KTA, to be within walking distance because we can only afford one car. We didn't want to bus her. We wanted to
098make sure she was safe. So, she's in fifth grade now. She's about to go into middle school. She has ADHD. She struggles. She struggles to make friends. She struggles in large environments. She gets overwhelmed. She can't make a decision. Coming to a school like Apprende, while I'm sure a magnificent school, would not serve her interests. She would be lost. She would be lost in the system. At her current school, because of its smaller size, when I said she needed an IEP meeting, I had an appointment within a month. I had a plan within two. When I said she needs a 504 for her ADHD diagnosis, I had a meeting with Ms. Vester and Mrs. Thwaites in a week. We had a plan that day. They came to me with recommendations I didn't even think of
099because I've never seen my daughter in a school environment. But they know her. All of the teachers know her. All of the administrators know her. All of the administrators and teachers know my son, who's going to be an incoming teacher. Who's going to be an incoming kindergartener. He's been looking forward to going to school with his sister for years. He's been looking forward to being with the same teachers for years. And they've been looking forward to being with him too. The traditional model can't be understated in its importance. People seek this out. People seek out the Spalding accreditation. The deficit this will leave in the Kyrene community can't be understated. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kerr-Robinson. Our next speaker will be Heather Vita, who will be followed by Mariah Monson. Hi. Right now we are
100at a pivotal moment. We can let this divide us and weaken our district, a district with outstanding schools so many of us love. Or we can rise to the challenge and come together to make Kyrene Public Schools stronger for our community, children, and teachers. This is not an easy decision and it will impact all Kyrene families. The community feedback shared with the board has been valuable. We've heard from parents who rave about the unique programs at each school and who offer a variety of ideas to aggressively market Kyrene to bring in more families. We've heard from students who are thriving and have become who they are today because of their experiences at their schools. And we've heard from the teachers who are dedicated and passionate about teaching our children but are feeling the lack of
101resources on a daily basis and are afraid it will only get worse if we do not strategically use our funds. I do not know what the best answer is. And I do not envy those who have to make that decision. I do know that we live in a state where public education is at risk. The legislators who are supposed to be representing us are trying to dismantle our public school system. They're slashing crucial programs and draining our public tax dollars out of public schools to fund privatized education. As a community, we cannot let this happen. We need to speak up, push back, and stand together to make Kyrene Public Schools stronger. I also know that our board members and our superintendent do not want to close Kyrene schools. They do not want to see these
102people the bad guys or place the blame on the people who are trying to find a solution. They too love our schools and want what's best for all Kyrene students and families. Finally, we as a community are strong, resourceful, and resilient. Once a decision is made, no matter what that might be, we must make sure we do not turn against one another. That will only weaken our schools. Let's use this as an opportunity to unite us, to show our children how we can rise to the occasion even when it's hard. Let's make sure we work together to make sure we can make the best decisions for our schools. And let's make sure we do not turn against one another. Let's make sure we do not turn against one another. Let's make sure we do not
103turn against one another. Let's make sure we do not turn against one another. Let's make sure we do not turn against one another. That will only weaken our schools. Let's use this as an opportunity to unite us, to show our children how we can rise to the occasion even when it's hard. Let's make sure we do not turn against one another. That will only weaken our schools. Let's use this as an opportunity to unite us, to show our children how we can rise to the occasion even when it's hard. Let's make sure we do not turn against one another. That will only weaken our schools. Let's use this as an opportunity to unite us, to show our children how we can rise to the occasion even when it's hard. Let's make sure we do not
104turn against one another. That will only weaken our schools. Let's use this as an opportunity to unite us, to show our children how we can rise to the occasion even when it's hard. can be while at the same time demanding our state legislators and state superintendent fund public education thank you miss vita our next speaker is mariah monson who will be followed by michelle ang good evening kyrene board my name is mariah munson and i am the kea vice president this statement has been made in collaboration with our officer and exec board teams kea leadership has had conversations with you about how our teachers are doing through all of this no one wants to see their school have to go through consolidation but many of us understand the reality of our situation in kyrene and
105are ready for the next step what is becoming more and more impossible for our educators to deal with are the ever-increasing responsibilities that fall on us when we have to operate at the same high level of expectation with less resources we are being stretched to our limits when our schools operate at less than full capacity more is put on the staff to run that school this means more duty more meetings less time to plan and prepare for the diverse needs of our students and less collaboration that is not a recipe for success if we slow down and keep schools open we would like to remind you of the lever that gets pulled when you have to cut seven million dollars from the budget then people get cut we will have to have a riff which
106will result in higher class sizes affect our special area programs our assistant principals our academic interventionists full-day kindergarten etc this would lessen the kyrene experience for all students and make teaching for our educators even harder we regard each of you with so much respect we ask that you keep our educators in mind when making the decision to consolidate our sites it is not fair that this is the decision you are being tasked to make but we need you to have all the resources to do so we are committed to making sure that we have a safe and inclusive school for all of kyrene thank you thank you miss monson our next speaker is michelle ang who will be followed by molly able hi first i want to thank the governing board for dedicating their time
107to make sure that kyrene stays strong everyone wants their school to be saved but we are a community and all of the schools are what make kyrene great it is necessary to close schools so that a rift doesn't happen and to make sure the district is safe and the school is safe and the school is safe and the district doesn't have to pull any of the levers that have been discussed it is hard when one school says that their school is better than another because we are all great what needs to happen is a plan to save the programming from each site so that it can continue in the new building therefore we will just be closing buildings but not losing the greatness that happens within those buildings and within kyrene thank you again for
108all your time that you have dedicated to us thank you miss ang our next speaker is molly able who will be followed by katie sturbins hello my name is molly able and i'm the stem coordinator at kta and i also run the theater program there and i'm a proud mom of two kyrene alumni one from apprende and one from kta and i'm also a neighborhood resident and taxpayer and i would like to talk about the beautiful campus in my neighborhood that is set to close is that a wise choice for our tax dollars and what exactly is going to happen with the millions of dollars that we're spending on our school and our school is a school that is going to be open with the millions of dollars that we invested in the campus of
109kta of the three proposals put forth by the demographer two kept kta open as a super school why because it makes sense kta should continue to be a school of choice that could compete with charters that can offer more this campus offers more it would be an elementary with two buildings of classrooms a new library a new kitchen in the mpr new front office renovations it has a separate gym it has multiple basketball courts our theater has the brand new district sound system you guys just built an esports arena there there's also a huge music room and a huge band room on and on actual science lab with science sinks specials teachers wouldn't have to travel between campuses and those spaces create greater capacity for profit through after-school programs as well enrichment for kids that
110wouldn't have to travel to the school need to be bused to an additional location our campus is easy access on two major freeways 202 and 101 and we would have plenty of classroom space for a traditional model to exist side by side with a regular model chandler school district does that frankly a gifted school would also be a great fit at kta where a whole family could attend the same campus regardless of their gifted identification or not the district teachers students and families have poured resources into these spaces making it alive with stem and the arts let's keep it as a school of the future thank you miss abel our next speaker is katie stirbens who will be followed by shelby gordon hi my name is katie stirbens and i'm a kyrene parent with kids
111at murata and pueblo i actually went to this middle school and i'm pretty sure my love of soft pretzels began here over the last few months we've heard the same message um that if kyrene doesn't close schools then the things that make this district excellent will be compromised and maybe you're right maybe closures are the solution that will stabilize the budget and keep kyrene strong long term but the truth is none of us know and what makes families uneasy is the scale at which this is being done closing one or two schools is an adjustment closing eight schools at once is a district-wide experiment and in a school choice state that's a very big test with really real stakes families are afraid that we're making a decision so sweeping that we can't undo it if
112we're wrong that we might unintentionally accelerate the very issue that we're trying to fix enrollment loss by removing the in-district options that keep families here and out of charters if closures do move forward i just really hope that we have strong safeguards that are not just promises but really do happen that we have reasonable class sizes that we have real access to extracurriculars and that we have a variety of learning environments for us to use in our schools all the different students and their different needs i'm not here for murata or pueblo alone families want this district to thrive and we just want to make sure that the decisions made now don't unintentionally set kyrene back in the long run thank you so much for your time and your care we really appreciate you thanks
113thank you miss durbins our next speaker is shelby gordon who will be followed by sarah collins oh sherry lynn all right our next speaker will be sarah collins who will be followed by russell parker good evening president walsh superintendent jimmy walsh tenius and board members i stand before you as someone whose entire life has been woven into the fabric of kyrene schools i was a kyrene student a teacher a building level administrator my current role at the district office my mother taught here for decades before her passing in 2007 my husband is a teacher in the district and my two boys have started their careers here this district is clearly not just a workplace for me it's my family therefore the consolidation will hit me and my family deeply but because of my history in
114the district i can tell you with the utmost confidence that all students and families will find their place in new schools it will be welcoming inclusive and that their presence will make it even better i want to acknowledge the parents who have spoken so passionately these past few months those of us who work here are hurting just as much at the thought of consolidating schools but we also see what's coming if we don't act now in response to our current future enrollment i'd like to remind all of us that the process that got us to this recommendation was fair and thorough the committee met for months reviewing data and the implications there was a fair process for application and acceptance onto the committee it included community members parents and hiring staff they were charged with
115deciding on a model based on facts and not emotions families being concerned about the recommended model doesn't mean it was flawed it means the process led to difficult but necessary decisions if the decision is made to keep schools open despite what our budget demands even more families are going to stand before you next year and they'll be asking why their children no longer have the supports that they had in years past reduce special areas and elective offerings and they'll ask why their favorite teachers are leaving because we can't offer them compensation increases that they deserve we understand that this decision is so difficult but if there's any thought of not making a decision on december 16th i respectfully ask for your support you not to delay not only can we no longer live in limbo
116thank you thank you miss collins our next speaker is russell parker who'll be followed by delia lighting thank you for joining for our little weekly chat we've had so many times now i'm happy to be here and have a chance to talk with you again um school board president superintendent executive assistant everybody thank you for doing all the work that you have been doing you have not done the easy thing you have definitely done the hard thing it has not been easy there's been a lot of time away from your families time away from your kids same thing for all the parents that are out here as well you did not have to go to every single middle school you did not have to have all these you've made time and opportunity for parents to
117speak thank you for taking the hard route not the easy route but i know the parents out here we've been listening to just as you've been listening to us something i saw at our last meeting that really kind of impacted me was hearing the schools that have already been combined and had a chance to get to know each other and to be able to talk to each other and understand each other they're much more accepting of hey if we have to go at this school it's great i've already got my friends here one of the things that i've kind of been harping on and i hope that you would consider is delaying this process a little bit in the aspect so that we can get our schools to have sister schools more opportunities for the
118children to interact and so that when they do go to a middle school they have the opportunity to say oh i'm not worried about going there it's not going to be scary because i've got a friend from this other school that i want to see every day and i can't go to the school that i like there's a chance that if we have these sister schools it'll give the opportunity for if there is combining that we could do that there's a lot of things that parents have been suggesting ways to kind of make money to extend our financial situation for a little bit longer so that we can get to that point also let's take a scalpel to this not a sledgehammer as people have been talking about let's figure out what we're doing instead
119of making all these huge changes all at once thank you for making the hard choices thank you for doing the hard effort putting in all that we appreciate it thank you thank you mr parker our next speaker is delia lighting who'll be followed by catherine parker good evening kyrene board district leadership and everybody in the community who's been showing up to our public hearings for what seems like forever i'm here to speak just to the board about the recommendation and concern to slow things down or to pause the process as an educator in kyrene as a person who represents educators in kyrene slowing down this process or delaying it is going to cause even more anxiety and stress than we're already feeling you heard principal corey speak to it you heard sarah collins speak to
120it it's something that we are constantly talking about every day and if we can't make a decision in december we are going to lose some of the best educators in our district we are already seeing the timeline for contracts come out i don't know how to urge teachers to sign their contract when they don't know the end of the year so i'm going to ask you to take the information in order to sign that to to make decisions for themselves every day we're talking about well what's the plan what's the plan we can't really clearly have a plan in place until we know what your decision is um the more we delay that the harder that is going to be to accept by your staff the other thing is is i know that you as
121a board have a very tough decision in front of you we acknowledge that we accept that we have the right to make decisions and we're going to make those decisions i firmly believe that that you guys are doing the job you're doing the work it's hard it's it's impossible you are not the only board dealing with these things either we're seeing this all across arizona right now so when we're talking about possibly losing families i urge our families to also consider what's happening around the state i've heard lots of people talk about getting the fire going to the capitol and really taking the fight there i urge that as well please take the fight there and end it here don't stop here don't let your anger burn out here take it to the capitol because
122we have lawmakers in place who have been dismantling public education for generations thank you ms lighting our next speaker is catherine parker who'll be followed by carolyn bonamo good evening it's been quite a ride for these past few months when the demographer mr browner first likened this process to a roller coaster i have to say i felt a little offended at that it's not the phrasing i would have used but now i can see what he meant and for the record i would very much like to get off of this ride throughout these meetings you have been asked repeatedly to look at our situation without emotion and listen to our very emotional arguments with an objective ear so that you can make the best possible decision i want to remind you that looking at this
123five-year budget gap as an emergency that must be rectified with only two years of very rapid school closures is in itself a very emotional response respectfully we are watching you be influenced by forces both seen and unseen and we are also looking at the impact of the pandemic on our schools and our communities and the impact of the pandemic on our communities and many of us still sincerely believe that this decision will put us on a path of no return i am starting to see news articles about school closures in scottsdale unified school district chandler gilbert and mesa the difference that i'm seeing is that these districts so far appear poised to start with a handful of schools one to three and kyrene for some reason has been instructed to take a sledgehammer to our
124district i don't want our district to be the sacrificial test case that demonstrates just how aggressively we can close campuses these other districts are going to use our autopsy to model what they can and can't do i don't think any of you want this to be your legacy either so imagine two scenarios two or three years now either we've paused the process or slowed it significantly down we've lost a couple million dollars yes and there's been some disruption but perhaps we have a better idea of data moving forward or we hop on the roller coaster we go full speed ahead barreling through eight or more school closures likely resulting in more student and funding loss than was predicted or modeled as my husband russell told you at the pueblo hearing on the day of the
125school closure all models are wrong some models are useful one of these features is a gut punch and one of these is a death spiral another situation is a winner but only one makes kyrene a pariah for all incoming and new families i repeat this is not an emergency necessary necessitating this level of restructuring this quickly please slow down pause and let's get the heck off of this ride thank you thank you miss parker our next speaker is carolyn bonamo who will be followed by john pratt good evening my My name is Carolyn Bonomo and I'm here to speak on behalf of Kyrene Traditional Academy where I was a teacher for 10 of my 25 years in Kyrene. When I heard KTA, a school consistently ranked as one of the most diverse schools in Arizona,
126was on the close list, my first thought was, well, that must be a mistake. I mean, KTA is a national blue ribbon school, which has certainly been a point of pride for this district. It's received three Arizona A-plus awards and the list of recognitions goes on and on and on. So naturally a demographer who looked simply at bus routes and enrollment patterns decided that this would be the ideal school to close. Please help this make sense. Kyrene has an A on the Arizona State Report Card, so we're closing it. Wagner, Paloma, Ninos have B ratings, so naturally they're staying open. Please help this make sense. In addition to being a school that prides itself on diversity, KTA is Kyrene's only traditional academy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
127you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. KTA consistently outscored surrounding schools, despite a lack of support from the district. In fact, the district curriculum expert never trained in the Spalding Methods, the foundation of a traditional academy curriculum. Can you imagine that? There is a reason why Chandler Traditional Schools are so successful. Their district office has trained personnel that fully understands the unique needs of such a school. Please help this make sense. Just a few short years ago, I went to a school in the state of Memphis. the board approved a six million dollar construction and renovation of the existing building at KTA last year the district spent a lot of money building an eSports lab at this location again
128please help this make sense closing KTA is a slap in the face to every taxpayer in this district who supported your endeavor to create this amazing campus and to every employee on that campus who despite all the odds have made KTA a point of pride for this district thank you miss Bonamo our next speaker is John Pratt who will be followed by Kelsey Wolf-Dane thank you for not calling me Jen I appreciate that I've learned good evening school board superintendent tenas and Kyrene community thank you for having me here tonight I'm the father of Mariposa and Pueblo student and this is my second time speaking my wife has spoken once and tonight is my daughter's fourth time speaking thank you miss Bonamo our next speaker is John Pratt who will be followed by Kelsey Wolf-Dane
129so I'm here in support of Mariposa for it my daughter was here in support of Mariposa and for extending the timeline for the closure of Pueblo for those that can go through the school while we plainly would like Mariposa and Pueblo and all Kyrene schools to stay open indefinitely we are real to the circumstances that require the district to make tough decisions first a huge thank you to those the fantastic Mariposa PTO and community for their tireless work they have put in the save Mariposa with that I'm here to support them not only because we love the community but because of the metrics that make sense and reflects the public schools what public schools should be the five-time a plus rating the high bond boundary and home population relative to the other schools one of
130the highest occupancies in the district but I'm going to talk a little bit about the intangibles at the same time the neighborhood where there is a huge community sport where you will find new families and strollers and two playgrounds anchored by this wonderful school and the community will be able to support them and they will be able to help them make a difference you're going to see a variety of ways in which they will save a lot of money and help them survive because they will not be the only family that will be there to help those kids if they have any difficulties so we are going to be working together to help them that's our goal if the community can get them back they can get back into the financial environment we want to
131make sure that you can support those kids and that we give them the confidence to tell them that we have a great community and that we have all the option to help those kids that they don't have in our public school what communities should represent a community that can't stop won't stop supporting Mariposa and Kyrene embrace Mariposa don't close it thank you very much thank you mr. Pratt our next speaker is Kelsey Wolf-Donne who we followed is Michelle McElvain already spoken oh great then you'll be following miss Wolf-Donne good evening okay we're here seventh one I want to focus my message on gratitude we have had several people talk about Mariposa specifically so I don't need to go into all of our data points for that so first gratitude for our Mariposa Together efforts that
132started August 27th we have so many people to thank here in the audience watching on online countless teachers parents staff so thank you to everyone who participated in the process for the past couple months zooming out to all of Kyrene as some of the other people said thank you so much for welcoming our different communities our different schools we really are truly one Kyrene and I appreciate all the friendships that we've made and going through this process together and I think we're all focused on what comes next after this and focus on healing and bringing people together when I say gratitude to each of you president Walsh vice president Nelson members a tree Davis and Collins as other people said you didn't have to do it this way and we appreciate that you took the
133time to listen to all of us to superintendent tenuous and all of the district staff security everyone who made all of these hearings possible finally I want to thank each and every person a part of Mariposa again hi to those watching online here in the community we have such an amazing community and I always like to think of our whole Mariposa community so many people weren't able to participate in this process so we like to represent all of our families and not just Warner Ranch that we've talked about so much but our Kyrene and walloop a neighborhood our Grove Parkway community apartments and so thank you again to everyone department POSA and all kind of good night thank you miss Wolf Donnie our next speaker is Michelle McElvain who will be followed by Melanie Malin
134good evening president superintendent Thomas and esteemed board members I'm a grateful Kyrene parent and I want to thank you for this meeting thank you for your hours of dedicated service and thank you for the exceptional educational foundation my children have received at Kyrene traditional Academy I chose KTA because of the traditional model and I have not been disappointed in addition as a national Blue Ribbon School KTA closes the academic gap for children at all levels and this is important to me because it helps children in the community I believe KTA to me seems like a piece of heaven because of the diverse multi-ethnic and multilingual community I have concerns on my heart is it important to close such a special and unique school second I just don't understand the plan to collect feedback from the
135community in January after the final decisions have already been made and finally why is such a small school being split into two schools I trust you please give thoughtful consideration to the plan for KTA thank you so much thank you Miss McElvain our next speaker is Melanie Malin who will be followed by Karen Seelock I didn't mean to do that all right hi my name is Melanie Malin I am a former Kyrene kid and have been able to watch Kyrene grow from the ground up this is emotional I started my career teaching at Murata 18 years ago I chose to start my career there because that's where my mom taught I didn't want to leave Murata but a reduction in force changed my fate I was placed at Lomas and while I loved my time
136at both schools after several years I decided I would shop in and find a place that fit best I worked on several Kyrene committees and was told that carrying traditional Academy an A plus blue ribbon school was a school that I had to see I thought the traditional Academy would not fit for me because I am not a traditional teacher however I learned this is Kyrene's version of a traditional Academy I soon learned that the value of having a traditional school the programs placed there are at our school offers are far that our school offers are far different than other schools I just want to speak tonight to express the value of keeping a traditional school open no one wants to see their school closed so I am not addressing the board to say save
137my school but to stress the importance of saving our program it was my choice to work at KTA for its program and I feel just like the reduction in force that my choice is being taken away thank you for your time tonight I appreciate you all thank you Miss Malin that microphone can be tricky next speaker will be Karen Seelock will be followed by Kevin Blomberg good evening it's nice to see your faces again I'm here again to speak on behalf of KTA is both a parent of two current students and our KTA community who cannot be here tonight but will be adversely impacted by this closure we have nine apartment complexes that are within walking distance of our school and for many of these children their education will suffer if they have to navigate
138transportation they've never had to navigate and when daily attendance is such a factor and a driver in a student's education and success we are placing too many students in jeopardy by closing KTA we may not be the loudest school at these meetings but ours is one at big risk due to those socioeconomic factors we ask you to please reconsider our campus itself is unique in both its large capacity and state-of-the-art facilities designed to help our students excel our campus can support nearly a thousand students our campus is in fact large enough to take on the full enrollment of both Paloma and barissa schools with the current projected enrollment decrease of 10 percent versus the current plan to split our campus between two schools which does not make sense to us we could also be repurposed
139to serve as a campus to host both the traditional model and a gifted model or a traditional model and a special needs option whatever the district chooses to expand choices versus take them away kyrene focuses on community and this would create a larger Community versus tear one apart kyrene is one of the top districts in Arizona based on its strong academic reputation be competitive by providing choices that parents are seeking traditional dual language gifted my family is an out-of-boundary family who chose kta for the traditional model which will be eliminated with the current proposal with the elimination of this model families will be forced to choose another traditional model in another district which will lead to further decline in enrollment for kyrene thank you thank you miss silak our next speaker is kevin blomberg who
140will be followed by caddy burkle hi um my name is kevin blomberg i'm a kyrene parent and a prende middle school teacher and i'm speaking tonight on behalf of my wife brandy haas who teaches at kyrene traditional academy and on behalf of our daughter who attends kta i want to address the proposal to close kyrene traditional academy kta is not just another school on the list is the only traditional school model or model school in the entire district if you close it without offering a traditional option any of you can do it if you close it without offering a traditional option anywhere else those families will not simply transfer to another kyrene school they will leave the district entirely for charter schools that do not offer or that do offer the model they chose in
141addition the kyrene community voted to pass a bond several years ago they voted believing the district would use those funds responsibly millions of dollars were invested into kta's expanded building including the middle school addition voters supported that bond with the expectation that those projects were long-term commitments not temporary experiments before you close the model school is a model school that is fully funded by the kta and the kta is actively contributing to the development of a digital model if you can close kta i urge you to answer one key question have you provided families with a true alternative to the traditional model the district has expressed plans to keep a program in school open for our gifted students because we are concerned about losing them to charters and competing school districts in the chandler school
142district the same problem will happen if you close an entire traditional school because closing the school without preserving the model will cause a loss in enrollment that we won't get back thank you Our next speaker is Katty Burkle, who will be followed by Long Trinh. Hello again for the last time. I really appreciate you all being here, and I'm so happy to get this last chance to talk. I know this board wants to make data-informed decisions, and I want to make sure that the district's projections capture the full value of schools like Mariposa. People move because of the school. They stay after their children have grown up and moved on, and they invest in that community. The stability and property tax revenue benefits the city as a whole and benefits the district. Mariposa is a
143mixed-income school, not Title I, but with a 43% free and reduced lunch rate, we are eligible. Research shows that economically diverse schools like Mariposa help all children do better. This is seen in better reading and math scores, and also in the increase in the number of students who are enrolled in the school. There is also an emphasis on empathy and problem-solving skills from learning alongside peers with different life experiences. But Mariposa's value isn't just economic, its social. It's the heart of our neighbourhood. The morning walks to school bring our community together. I see most of the red shirts here every morning. As we're going to school, when someone is missing, like when my dad died last year, or when my mom was out for surgery last week, all the neighbours, bus drivers, crossing guards, they
144all notice. notice and they check in and these community connections make our communities safer stronger and more equitable families showing up are showing you that this matters with their choice which does affect kyrene's bottom line yet these factors don't seem to have played a major role in decision making if we close mariposa we lose more than a building we lose a community anchor that supports children families neighbors and kyrene as a whole please ensure your decisions reflect the full picture of what schools like mariposa bring to kyrene thank you miss burkle our next speaker is long trinh who will be followed by jackie wallace hi uh previously uh i kind of talked about um modern attrition uh looking at the frequently asked questions that seems like the same numbers are used whether you have 19
145sites 13 sites or 12 sites there's no attrition to closing any of the schools or so and i don't think that's true there should be some modeling of a school closure you're never going to get one for one you close a school there's going to be some leakage and that needs to be modeled it may look bad but that's reality so i ask that when you do close the school do surveys with parents or some kind of modeling because you're going to lose students and then what would the numbers look like are you going to have to disclose additional schools to cover up those losses so i just ask that the those numbers get updated thank you thank you miss trinh our next speaker is jackie wallace who'll be followed by catherine schaefer good evening
146my name is jackie wallace and i have two kids at murata i'm back with my cpa and auditor hat on last night we learned that the district cfo is creating a tool that will allow the board to see the detailed budgetary impacts of specific school closure decisions and the tool will first be introduced at the december 2nd board meeting i have several concerns regarding the creation and use of this tool and the timeline in using it for this decision first will the tool be released to the public so the community can test it and look at the same data the board is transparency in this matters second how will the board know the tools outputs are complete and accurate will it be independently reviewed by a data analyst will it model tougher enrollment outcomes for
147example a five or ten percent additional loss of students and show how those impacts or how show how that impacts revenue will the tool be used to determine the impact of the project we've seen phoenix elementary lose 500 students instead of their projected 200 and denver paused its school closure plan a mere seven months after their vote small errors and assumptions here can lead to erroneous decisions that are monumental and historical lastly the board will see this tool on december 2nd and are scheduled to vote december 16th that's only two weeks to look at various financial scenarios and outcomes which are a new piece to this puzzle companies that downsize often run these analyses for months with finance teams validating scenarios will the board really have sufficient time and independent review before the date of
148the vote i urge the board to slow down require public access to the model and ensure independent verification so this historic decision is truly data backed additionally i submitted electronic comment with specific considerations that should be taken into account before using a data analysis model i hope the cfo and the board will review those to ensure all scenarios are accounted for in the modeling tool thank you for all your time thank you miss wallace our next speaker is catherine shaffer who will be followed by paul decker hi i'm catherine shaffer and i want to start with thanking you all i know this is a lot on your families too and your emotions to be here with us and we appreciate you as a hiring parent and as someone who has long advocated for children with
149higher needs including through my experience as a foster parent and as a parent of a medical assistant i am very much concerned about the impact of this new model i'm concerned about the impact of this new model because i'm a politically fragile child with a 504 who will be on a hiring district learning program next semester i'm deeply concerned about the equity impact of the proposed middle school boundaries in ahwatukee under the current plan all west side title one elementary schools would feed into a single middle school while the other would receive none only having two schools with these set boundaries creates a halves and a halves not split funnels a disproportionately high number of students requiring academic, behavioral, and social emotional support into one building. That places a heavy burden on staff, especially when
150our teacher advocates say we're already asking them to do more with less. And this limits opportunities for the very caring children who rely most on consistent public school resources. From my background, I know how crucial it is to avoid creating environments where the highest-need students are the most under-resourced. This isn't about protecting one campus. It's about preventing an inequitable structure that the current boundary map in Ahwatukee cannot solve with only two schools. Maintaining the three Westside middle schools is the only path that preserves balanced enrollment and equitable access to support. I urge the district and the board to reevaluate. The closure and boundary proposal using an equity framework and to keep the three middle schools open on the West. Our community's kids deserve balanced opportunity, not a system that separates them into haves and have-nots
151in a single Ahwatukee community. Thank you again for all you guys do for us. Thank you, Ms. Schaefer. Our next speaker will be Paul Decker, who will be followed by Christy Wolford. Hi again. Thanks for having us. My name is Paul Decker, a Mariposa parent of one, soon to be two next year, hopefully. And I'm here with my daughter, Christy. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. I'm here with many families who are proud to have our school and I'm proud to stand together for Kyrie's future. In my decade plus of leading analytics, I've gotten pretty good at filtering out the noise to find the signal. And believe me, I've spent a lot of time in the noise. When realities become clear throughout this process, certain indicators matter most when
152you're trying to build stable, sustainable schools, strong enrollment, strong residential enrollment, sorry, resident enrollment, consistent year-to-year numbers and utilization that district targets. These are not abstract ideas. They're the most reliable signals of the school that families depend on, that operates predictably and the supports the broader system rather than straining it. These aren't comparisons between schools. They are criteria that create stability, reduce busing complexity, strengthen feeder patterns, and preserve the long-term health of Kyrene. For that reason, we strongly encourage using overall enrollment and home boundary enrollment as top criteria in determining which schools remain open. These factors reflect true family commitment and long-term viability, exactly what Kyrene needs more of as enrollment continues to decline. We also understand the financial pressures of driving the plan without knowing the school level data yet, and knowing that most
153staffing remains intact even through closures, it becomes even more important to consolidate only where it meaningfully reduces operational burden. Closing schools that already align with district target risks hide disruption with the limited financial return. That's why many in this community are supporting keeping two to three additional schools open district-wide. This isn't resistance to change, it's resistance to overcorrection. The Kyrene doesn't need to cut more deeply than the data supports. And more importantly, you now have insights the committee didn't have at the start, real enrollment patterns, first-time campus visits, community testimony, and a clearer view of how these moves will play out in practice. You're in the strongest position of refine this plan of using what's real, not just what was projected months ago. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Decker. Our next speaker is Kristy Wolford,
154who will be followed by Kaitlyn Whalen. Okay, I'm gonna try to keep it short tonight. Try being the key word there. One thing I want to do first off though is to clarify something that I said last night when I mentioned that middle schools are essentially carrying this district. While that is true, let's get down to the reasons why. Middle schools are bigger buildings, they just are. They have a greater utilization because of higher enrollment. Their utilization is higher throughout the entire district. So what that technical means is that the money that comes from the state, it's being maximized the best at middle schools. That's essentially why I said middle schools are carrying this district. Now, do we need to close schools? Unfortunately, yes. But I think this fact alone proves that middle schools deserve
155a pause for a couple of years. All the middle schools, especially because that plucks out the middle of this educational experience. Let's not pluck out that middle just yet. When it comes to elementary schools though, how about if we propose maybe something different? Let's take the baseline of what the committee has given us and what the demographer suggested. Let's use that only as a baseline though. Then let's add some muscle to it. Let's say, hmm, grades, letter grades that the schools were just given. Let's give that a weighted grading to the grading on top of what the demographer has already given us. Maybe then let's factor in something of neighborhoods like Bunny suggested. How can we least, the least way of disrupting families through their entire educational journey, elementary school, middle school, high school. Let's
156put that together. Families will appreciate. Feeder systems matter. Now, when we get through with this first phase, yes, there may be another phase. I don't, I hear the groans already. Let's then maybe use the power that we've determined we have in this district. Let's find out what makes some regions of Kyrene successful. Let's use that information and figure out how to make other regions excel or boost them. Because when regions are successful, families are happy. Essentially when families are happy, families are happy. And then when districts win. That is how Kyrene can win. And then Cedric, I'm just going to say this. When districts win, we boot Tom Horn. Okay? Cool. Thank you, Ms. Wolford. Our next speaker is Kaitlyn Whalen, who will be followed by Kareen Inouye. Hello. Thank you guys for providing another
157opportunity to share feedback with you and for the countless hours you volunteered to this process. I think every member of our community will walk away from this process at least somewhat changed for the better. As we've learned that we all have amazing and unique strengths, we need to be able to share our strengths to share when we find something we're truly passionate about advocating for. I'm privileged to be the mom of a current Murata third grader and an incoming kindergartener. Murata is our neighborhood school and also our school of choice. Murata has become an emotional extension of our home with staff that have become like family. Our fridge is covered in encouraging notes from teachers, and teachers and the principal have come to my kids' little league games as their biggest cheerleaders. Murata is also
158basically a physical extension of our home. We live close enough to see teachers walking out to their cars at the end of the day from our dinner table. Instead of annoyance or impatience, teachers always respond with heartfelt smiles and waves when Nyla and Asher stand on our balcony enthusiastically waving and yelling their names. All that to say, there's something truly special about a neighborhood school that can't be replicated at a school farther away. As you continue to have discussions amongst yourselves and prepare to make a decision next month, I hope you'll consider options that minimize disruption to our strong neighborhood. Thank you. I'd like to quickly pivot to the middle school discussion. I received an email this afternoon from Tempe Elementary School District, which is where I work as a Speech-Language Pathologist. Tempe will be
159transitioning one of their middle schools to be a Career Exploration Choice school. Instead of closing the school all at once during the transition phase, Tempe announced today that this middle school will not be offering 6th grade for next school year, but that 7th and 8th graders will be allowed to complete their middle school experience together at their current schools. at their current campus i'm wondering if something similar could be considered to prepare for the potential closure of kyrene middle schools if that's the route that ultimately must happen i'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to understand all the logistical and financial ramifications related to transportation facilities and staffing at a campus with fewer grade levels but i'm curious if you guys might be able to have a conversation with your tempe counterpart so about what that looks
160like thank you miss malan thank you our next speaker is kareen inouye who will be followed by jeremiah gutierrez jensen all right okay when we first heard that eight schools were on the closure list it stunned many of us we were told that it was a path to saving seven million over five years but many believe there are are ways to reach that without cutting so deep especially when those savings aren't guaranteed so we're asking for necessary changes just not an overcorrection that we can't undo i want to acknowledge the work that has gone into this the long-range committee and the demographer put in real effort but the plan was not wasn't built school by school and leaned heavily on projections and on paper it all looks clean but as you've heard from the community
161families teachers neighbors what works on paper doesn't always work in practice the future of kyrene won't be shaped by closures alone it will be shaped by the people who stay teach lead and invest in these neighborhoods and now unlike at the start you have the ability to set the criteria you weren't the ones choosing their original data but today you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it a lot of you appreciate the efforts of those families who have been working through this process throughout our education system but there are many many more things you can do thank you and thank you to those of you who are doing this effort throughout our education system and at a time like today you've listened to
162countless hours of testimony locked our campuses and communities and you've seen the reality and the models couldn't capture so as you consider whether you can add back a couple more schools we're asking you to use what you've learned way utilization use real student numbers consider home boundaries that show true family commitment and look at cost by site not just averages does title will lead to decisions that are steady, informed, and grounded in reality. Thank you to the board for all your time and thoughtfulness and to Superintendent Tenius for your leadership through a very emotional and tense process. And to the community for choosing to show up and to trust a process that was very difficult. This is the home stretch, close for your schools. Give the changes room to settle and let this community, your
163strongest asset, help build Kyrene's field trip. Thank you guys. Thank you Ms. Inouye. Our next speaker is Mr. Jeremiah Gutierrez Jensen, who will be followed by Mark Wolf. Good evening. I don't have a prepared statement today. I just wanted to talk about sort of this process and where we're headed as a district. I'm a parent of a kid from Anita, so you guys have heard my whole spiel about him being on IEP, et cetera. But what's important here is what we've seen in the data and sort of the direction that we're taking. I think what we're seeing is a huge decline in our enrollment. But what I'm seeing in the response to that is a knee-jerk reaction. I think closing eight schools in one year is going to be a travesty. I think it'll decimate
164the district. I think we won't have enough time to react to what will come in the future. We'll end up accelerating the decline in our schools. And I think that's a huge misstep. The voters in this district, the people in this district, the people in this area have given, we decided that we wanted to have a bond, we wanted to have the override because our community believes in Kyrene. We believe in the educational opportunities that are afforded from this district. And I think that closing eight schools in one year or two years is a huge misstep. We should have a more metered approach, have a more data-driven over time, because what'll end up happening is that we will end up causing our own, sealing our own fate with the district and causing Kyrene to lose
165what it is that makes Kyrene special. So I have 30 seconds left. I'll say one other thing. So I saw today that there was demographic data that was actually posted. I think one of the things that comes out in that data is that it disproportionately affects minorities as opposed to white kids. You can see in there that 29% is what is affected for white kids versus, I think, in, you know, in the, you know, Asian Pacific Islanders was like 46% and African Americans was like 36%. That's a huge difference. Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez-Jensen. Our next speaker will be Mark Wolf. I would like to thank the board for giving the Kyrene community the opportunity to share our opinions about how the district should handle the looming budget crisis. We've heard many voices from the Mariposa
166community, including my wife and many other parents, students, including my daughter in first grade at Mariposa, members of our PTO, and the district. We also heard from the district's board members and other people who are in the district. Our neighbors who plan to send their children to Mariposa, other neighbors who view Mariposa as a cornerstone of the community, and I've spoken many times. Not to say that Mariposa is a better school than any other school in the district, but that Mariposa helps mitigate the budget crisis by attracting families to move into the district. As I just said, you've heard from many parents of young children who plan to send their kids to Mariposa. The board will be asked to endorse a plan to address the budget shortfall. This will be additional funding for the school.
167It's a difficult decision. However, this plan does not address the underlying issue of declining enrollment. We will face all of the same problems we face now, an underfunded education system, decreasing birth rates, more charter schools, more homeschooling. I urge the board to convene a new long-range planning committee, not for the purpose of closing schools to address a budget deficit, convene a new long-range planning committee to keep schools open, to determine ways to attract families into the district. Hire a consultant who can share success stories of districts going from closing schools to schools thriving. Hire a consultant who knows how to get butts in seats. At the Pueblo hearing, three parents from Murata with relevant experience offered to help. I would also serve on a committee to keep schools open. We still need a plan to
168keep schools open. I'll end with a quote from my daughter. Why would you close a school if it was a great school? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Has Sandra McCullough spoken yet? All right. I think that is all of the blue cards that I have. Are there any other speakers that would like to speak this evening? Yes, Ms. Russell. Thank you so much, governing board, superintendent. I don't have any prepared remarks tonight, but just the theme of gratitude that Kevin kicked us off with and that I've heard from so many of you. And I have this same thought and feeling in that in since August 27th, the magic date, when our worlds all came crashing down, the camaraderie, the information, the data that we've given you, the conversations that we've had with you have
169been terrifying yet exhilarating at the same time, watching. And so I'm so grateful for the opportunity to pivot into realizing that, yes, the district is in a very tight spot and we're holding you to such a higher level of accountability than we would anywhere else. And so I encourage the district to ensure not just the what's next tactically, but the what's next in healing our community. And how do we bridge these gaps? How do we bridge these gaps? How do we bridge these gaps? How do we have these hard conversations after the vote occurs to ensure that, yes, we hear you, yes, we see you. And these are the things we want your voices to continue to be heard throughout this process. Thank you to everyone who, yes, Tom Horn and some expletives. Our state
170representatives, we are coming for you next. We are fired up, we're ready to go. We will continue to fight for you, just like you are fighting for us. So thank you, thank you again. Thank you, Ms. Russell. Are there any other speakers this evening? Yes, please. I'm having extra speakers tonight. I did not have anything prepared. I honestly don't feel as much gratitude today. I do appreciate your time. I know this has been a lot, but what keeps going through my head, I know that we've been asking for more time and it's not for nothing. It's because we did watch the long range planning, which was not long range. because we just started it this year and by before the end of the year you're going to be making a decision it was the name
171itself was flawed long-range it is not long-range like this is now now range and this and we saw these decisions get made in silos the M&O override get made separate a decision made separate from the schools that are closing from the model these decisions should have been all made together and now you guys have a mess to work with it was you know mucky and mucky out I'm not saying and or it was dirt in dirt out whatever and it's so that's why we're asking for more time it seems like the community the long-range planning committee should have did what they were supposed to do did a great job but now it should have gone to like professionals who know about what's what and how to actually do this kind of stuff and that's the
172part that's very disheartening because it's just like they had 20 minutes to make that decision and you're just like what I've taken longer to decide a decision than I should have done and I'm not going to you know where we're gonna go for vacations it wasn't as much time as it should have been that's all I got to say that's my last piece I do appreciate your time thank you any other speakers this evening well that will conclude our seventh and final public hearing thank you for all of your feedback the board will next meet on December 2nd where this discussion will be agenda sized for further discussion on the board have a great evening thank you