10-28-2025 Kyrene Governing Board Study Session and Meeting

001Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our regular board meeting. Today is Tuesday, August 28th, 2025. Item 1. August. Oh, man. October 28th, 2025. It's been a long time. Item 1.1 is call to order our study session. Our study session is called to order. It's 5.08 p.m. Item 1.2 is the study session on long-range planning and opportunity for questions and answers. So, Board, this study session is purely meant to provide an opportunity for Board members to ask questions of district leadership that might be clarifying regarding feedback or inquiries that we've received to date. Again, we're not taking any action tonight. We're not taking any action this month. We're not taking any action next month. We're not taking any action until the year is December. But we want to have this opportunity to discuss, particularly if there's any

002clarifying questions. We're not here to give direction on the first two of the seven hearings that we've gotten. But if there's things we've heard back that maybe require some discussion or clarification or maybe some recommendations to the district on how to respond to some of those inquiries. this would be a good opportunity to do that. So with that, I will just open it up if anybody has questions or discussions or topics they'd like to bring up for the session. Member Davis. Thank you very much. I have a couple of things I just want to clarify, if possible. In the feedback that I've been getting and just reading through the letters that we get, there seems to be a great deal of concern about what happens with our special needs kids. And I know we haven't

003talked much about that. I'd like to know a little bit more about how we're taking them into consideration when we're planning for the future. I think that would be helpful to a lot of people. Great. Thank you, Member Davis. Superintendent Zanus, I know that partly it's what is the plan and it's also partly what is the strategy for communicating that out to our families as well, right? Yes. Thank you, President Walsh. And thank you, Board Member Davis, for that question. I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Lane here. to share what we've talked about. We did provide the board with some information also in the board memo, and there is going to be a communication going out to families, I believe, in the next few days. So I'll let Dr. Lane speak a little

004bit more to that, but I also have a copy of that here if you need Dr. Lane. Oh, we're just having a little technical. One moment. I just want to make sure I am answering the question. I will admit that I was looking at something. And so if you could repeat the question, that would be great. Yeah, I think member Davis. Well, I'll let you. Okay. Thank you. I just would like an update to how our special needs kids are being taken into consideration, what the plans are to date. I know everything's still in flux, but. what we've been doing. So with the proposed plan, we have been looking at capacity for programs at each of those individual sites that are open. We have been looking at boundaries to get... to make sure that children

005are closest to their homeschool. So some of those things we may be able to accomplish now. But also just to ensure that we have capacity for our programs. And we are looking at... the least amount of moves possible, but some, you know, are going to require, it's going to require some moves, of course. We are also, we know we're getting some similar questions that you are getting as a board. And so, like Superintendent Tenya has mentioned, we do plan to send a communication sometime this week, just letting parents know we are thinking about this, but we are waiting like, you know, with almost everything until the board makes a decision in December. And then we will be ready because a lot of the work we're doing behind the scenes. And if it happens, we can

006be ready. And board member Davis, I just want to add to that. You know, one of the reasons it's really hard to, you know, if we took the plan as it is. and said, here's where everybody goes based on it as it is today. It's not as simple as in December, should the board change the plan in any way, which schools would close or the timing of when which schools would close. It actually is such a domino effect that it's not as simple as saying, oh, well, we didn't close this school, so now that program is just going to move to another school. It might actually impact all of them. So we're trying not to be too premature in releasing exactly this is where you go at this point until we actually know what the

007landscape is of the boundaries and which schools are open and where programs would best be suited. So it's a little bit hard because there is a little bit of limbo in waiting to find out. We will be prepared behind the scenes that come December when the board should vote. We can move quickly to either release what, if the board was to vote as the plan as it is, to release that immediately, or if the board makes enough changes, we will be able to go back to the drawing board pretty quickly because we have a base plan ready to go. Great. Thank you for that. So I'm understanding that the goal is to make as little disruption, well, for all our kids, but especially for the special needs kids, that their teachers, their program, their equipment,

008their whatever, we are planning to move as... quickly as we can with as little disruption. Correct. And, you know, what we have to remember, it's no different than the criteria or parameters like the demographer had to consider when, you know, running different models. Yes, less disruption is always important, but there's always competing priorities sometimes. And similar to this, it might not be that in every situation it can be the less disruptive because of things such as you wouldn't want one school to have. all of the CCD programs say. So there does have to be some balance in that. So that's always a competing priority that you have to balance, but it's always part of the conversation to say, how do we minimize disruption and still meet the other criteria that we have to meet when

009we place programs? And I would say also the other priority that this provides us with an opportunity to make sure that children are nearest to their home school. We know that there are children on a bus in some cases for 45 minutes or an hour. And if we can do something about that in some of our moves, then we would want to do that. It's, you know, nobody wants to sit on a school bus for an hour. And that might be, again, it might be more disruptive because they're having a bigger move, less disruptive in their bus routes. And so we have to just, you know, kind of weigh all those different pieces for each individual program that's being moved to another location. The other piece that makes this a little more complicated is that

010it's not all the moves aren't happening in one year. And so when the moves are happening over, you know, a couple years also. trying to put focus on what's happening just for next year with then looking at how do we balance that the following year. So there's just some nuances that take a minute to figure out. Yes. Okay. And it's clear to me that you've been spending time thinking about this. A lot of time. Yes. With the IEPs being controlling for each kid and having to fit that in. So I appreciate the work and thanks for the answer. Great question. I have another question. I do want to just add one thing to that. That does include our preschool programs, not just our CCDs, our specialized programs. We are also having the exact same conversation

011about our preschool programs. We have signature programs. We have integrated and we have community ed preschool. I would say we're looking at that as a whole group, not just each individual preschool program. So we're doing the same thing as well. Where do our and signature would be such a thing as our dual language being the NIDOS program, right? logically makes sense. You would keep that at your dual language schools. But some of the other signature programs are community ed and are integrated preschools. What are we going to do? Thank you. I'm willing to let someone else ask a question before I ask my second question. Before we move off of this topic, I wonder if anybody else had questions or feedback on our CCD. I will say something. I think I appreciate the clarity around,

012yes, the work is happening. But I think one of the things that I've heard in this process is there's like nuggets of information happening. And what I think would cause a lot more anxiety is. I was told my child is moving to X school in August, but we made that change, which then domino, if we announced that this is where all these programs are going to go, we came back late August and made a decision that had a domino effect to a lot of different boundaries. And then to go back again, to tell that group of parents, no, we're going here. I just, I know for me, I would hate that. That would be really. that would be a lot of anxiety if I was trying to, because I have a child that you got

013to set the stage, you got to, you know, prepare them for the change, but having to do that over and over, like that's, that's too much. So I do appreciate that there is a balance you have to strike there, but knowing that you're still working. And as soon as you can communicate something solid, that that will be is, is important. If we can get something, letting people know that that is happening. I think you mentioned that was going on. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for that. And Dr. Lane, I know not all of our campuses have CCD programs, but most do. I think you shared some information with the board that there's about 17 campuses of our 25 that have some type of program, whether it's the cross-categorical, whether it's structured, whether it's behavioral.

014So when we're thinking about... the disruption that's caused by school consolidation. When we have these programs at 17 of our 25 schools, I'm starting to learn that it's a little unavoidable just given that the majority of our schools have these programs. It looks like of the schools that have CCD programs, I think there's nine that you shared with me. Three of them are targeted for consolidation. Six of them. proposed to stay open. So you've got about a third of your schools with CCD programs that are targeted for consolidation, which lines up roughly with about the number of schools that are being proposed for consolidation generally. So I'm glad that we're thinking about it. I've just heard so much feedback that I wanted to make sure it was clear that we were not... We're not taking

015an approach that disproportionately impacted any of our student groups with this approach. Because if that was the case, I'd have a lot of concerns with it. So I'm glad that you've been able to share some information with me. But yeah, this is going to be tough for a lot of our families. One of the public speakers talked about, you know, my CCD kiddos are... Kids are resilient, but my CCD kiddos are maybe less so. You know, kids are flexible, maybe less so. And I think that's true. And it's unfortunate that we have to have any change to those kiddos, but I'm glad to hear that there is not a disproportionate impact to those programs based on the overall district. No, no, there is not. So, but we are looking specifically at... where makes the most

016sense to move those programs, again, based on where their homeschools are too, because this gives us an opportunity to get children closer to a homeschool as well. But it's... We have about 186 children in our CCD program, just CCD. And so it really would not matter which set of schools were selected. I believe there would be an impact in some way to some special ed program. It might be CCB, it might be CCD. a CCBS program, which is a behavior sensory program, or a CCDS program, which is the developmental sensory program. And so, yeah. Dr. Lane, could you also, you said something you shared with me that there's, and it kind of feeds into this question as well about the need to balance also. Like you don't want to unintentionally, just because it's like these

017nine schools that currently have the program, it might need to spread to a school that didn't have that program so that you would balance across the district as well so that you're not. overburdening, if you will, one school with so many programs that the leader can't manage it because with a program on your campus comes a lot of extra responsibilities for the school. And so you want to balance those and not. over, you know, commit to one campus only. And you did a nice job of sharing that with the team the other day. I think you've identified that with the IEP meetings that our school leaders have to participate in. So if you have a disproportionate concentration of kiddos with IEP, that puts a lot of stress on the school leaders there. So we would

018end up with programs probably on every campus with the exception of our dual language. But the exception of our dual language is because of those inclusion opportunities. They are not as great for our CCD programs. And so we would not have programs on the dual language campuses, but every other school would have at least two programs. And when you say dual language, you mean the dual language open enrollment, only elementary, not the middle schools, right? Yes. Yes, correct. Thank you. Yes, the Norte and the Lagos. Yes. Thank you. Any other feedback on this particular topic? All right, Member Davies. Thank you. This has to do with a suggestion that came through that I would love if we could, in my estimation, merits some discussion. I would like some discussion about. And that is the suggestion

019that Lagos take its dual language academy, becomes a dual language pathway, and then The school is open to neighborhood enrollment that isn't. Am I making sense? I'm starting to lose my thread. You're talking about having Lagos be a dual language pathway as opposed to an exclusively open enrollment school. Yes. Yes. That sort of makes sense to me because my, as you know, my major concern here is keeping as much neighborhood schools as we can. or expanding neighborhoods by moving kids to a school that isn't terribly far away from the school that they're going to and thus expanding a certain neighborhood. But it seems to me that the kids who have trouble with language or just simply don't want to have that, but have an elementary school right nearby, you know. Well, that's what I'm asking.

020Can we talk about that? We've talked about this a little bit in the past with our discussions on the dual language generally. Because there's certainly pros and there's cons. Some of it comes to staffing and some of it comes to enrollment. I mean, having a dual language program might actually support the enrollment at a particular site because you can get neighborhood kiddos that don't want to do that. But I know there's challenges with staffing that are exacerbated as your school community gets a little bit smaller and maybe superintendent. And we don't have to make a decision now. It's a good question to understand the pros and cons. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I was going to talk about was, you know, so obviously from my. By having a pathway, one of the pros is that, yes,

021you could increase enrollment a little bit at Lagos and you give the neighborhood kids in. you know, that boundary or whatever we decide the boundary would be, the opportunity to attend that school. Some of the cons, though, that we talked about earlier on, and it was one of the reasons the initial recommendation was to go ahead and consolidate both dual language programs so that you didn't have this same problem we have now, which is with the super boundaries. So think of a pathway at a school. It's really not much different than the super boundary we currently have, which is we use Estrella and Lagos or we use Ninos and Norte. And we say, if you want dual language, you go to this campus. If you don't want dual language, you go to this campus. So

022that's similar to a pathway, but you'd be merging them basically into one school. The issue we really ran into at Lagos that I think, you know, it would be more of a con is what President Walsh referenced, which is really a staffing. becomes a significant staffing issue. So it would require an investment on behalf of the district. So for example, it's not much different than what I shared with gifted and the self-contained. When you start running pathway programs, if you don't have dedicated staff just for that program, and you try to do your class size ratios and you apply the formulas, you're going to have to hire more teachers at that campus to be able to cover the difference because you're really running two programs on one campus. So it does end up costing you

023more in FTE or full-time teachers. The other issue is that really, if it was balanced enrollment, it would be... not as significant of a con, but what we'd be looking at at Lagos, if you just took that little boundary right there that you're referencing from the recommendation. You would have a currently an enrollment is projected to drop across the board in the next five years. If you looked at Lagos current enrollment, they're just around 400 students. You'd only have 100 non-dual language students on the campus. So then you start to really create a very difficult culture for a school leader to manage where you have 100 non-dual language kids with 400 dual language kids on a campus. That doesn't. feels so great from a culture standpoint when you're in the hundred group. The other issue

024is that, um, There was one other thing I wanted to make sure I said with the point. It does start to create some disproportionate impacts on your special ed. So similar to our current super boundary issue that we brought up earlier, the same thing happens when you start to run a pathway program. You start to get a disproportionate number of special ed students on the non-dual language side. So you already have lower numbers. You start to identify kids who maybe don't then participate in dual language that get identified as special education, get shifted over to the non-dual language side. Now, sometimes they do very well in dual language, and that's great. But what's happened, what we've seen watching the dual language super boundaries, and I'm kind of looking to Dr. Lane because she's the one

025that brought this to our attention a couple years ago, that the district, and again, I wasn't here when the decision was made to do super boundaries. But an unintended consequences came to be disproportionality in identification of special education. Our boundaries, our super boundary school that's non-dual language has a much higher. special ed population, which creates a real burden on that school for many reasons. And it's not what's best for our special ed children either to start to isolate that way. So that was another issue we found that we think the pathway program is going to have the same result. It's just because you're doing it in one building versus two buildings. So the biggest concern is really that you'd have the 400 versus 100 students on a campus. Doesn't probably. make a whole lot of

026sense. Now, if it was balanced 400-400 and you were just running two completely different pools, that might be a different story. Yeah. I think the other flip is if you can use a pathway program to boost enrollment at a site, that does give that site more stability and longevity. Because if you are open enrollment and you're seeing a declining enrollment piece there, that does strain resources. as well because you've got a smaller school there but you still have the same amount of overhead with school leaders etc it saves the building it may not save the program so i think that's that's the different piece here is you could you could fill the school up to save the building but that may end up you may not be able to save the program either way So

027because, again, if you don't have enough dual language students, right, if eventually the population of dual language drops to be the hundred and the non dual language, the 400, you just have the flip of the problem. And that could happen over time. That's, you know, I don't have a crystal ball, as our demographer would say, to tell you exactly what would happen there. But I but, you know, I can tell you that again. What our concern when we originally brought dual language to the conversation was that when you look at the five-year projections of Lagos, and I'm kind of looking to Dr. Ostmeyer, but I feel like they were going to be under 300 within the next five to six years. And so that's a very, very small number of students. Okay. So it's the

028demography. You mentioned 100 possibly in the immediate future. About 100 kids if you just took Lakewood. Okay. Okay. And that comes from the demographer. Right. He can see the neighborhood. It's basically your students that go to Estrella that live in Lakewood. That's not all because that super boundary got split. Part Lagos, part, you know, was going to part go. Now they're going Monta Vista, Sierra. But it would have been, it's not all of the Estrella kids. And I don't recall Estrellas off the top of my head. I can look at a couple of little numbers, but before we get too far into the conversation, I, you know, I think one of the things that you're going to hear in many of these conversations as you're approached with questions is the competing priorities that are a

029part of that conversation. And I wish it was crystal clear that priority A is in line behind or ahead of priority B, C, D. Sometimes it's a jigsaw as far as really creating a little bit of interconnectedness between priorities that have a little bit more push when they're combined versus when they're separate. So two other pieces of information that get married into the conversation that we're having. When you look at a pathway at Lagos, one of the components that we were looking at, we actually had illuminated when we were looking at our gifted programs at Murata and Monta Vista. It, in fact, creates a singleton in any one grade, meaning there's one classroom, one homeroom teacher at each grade level who is teaching the general education curriculum. And in a district in which case we

030really celebrate professional learning communities and that collaborative approach to supporting student learning, you end up creating a consequence that you didn't intend to create when you only have one classroom per grade. The other competing priority that we heard in the conversations related to creating dual language programs is this real interest in continuing to market and to chaperone a dual language program and to keep it alive on both sides of the highway. So if you start to backfill a school with a competing program, you lose the opportunity to continue to bring in outside enrollment. or to invite inside enrollment to pursue an academic curriculum that they have choice. So you don't want to make it so tight that you don't actually give a little bit of oxygen to the program that you have spearheaded and supported.

031And then you also don't want to leave teachers in isolated spaces, in which case we are part of a much bigger collaborative organization for them to support students across the grade level itself. And I think one other piece that's important is I think having a pathway at one of the campuses and not at the other will create a lot of logistical issues for us as a district as well. That means one of your dual language is open enrollment only, but one isn't. One has a boundary, one doesn't. And so that just triggered when you were saying some of what you were saying, I can see where that can start to also become something. So, you know, I think. From an operational, I think we need to be consistent in dual language, whether they're pathways or

032not pathways. I mean, there are districts that do do pathway programs, and they have been somewhat successful. They have made some shifts to them. There were some districts. I'm just going to use uniforms as an example that had part of the school in uniforms, part not. All that's gone away because that wasn't successful. So there are some pieces when you start to run pathways at a school that get very complicated, though, to manage. And it's typically not what's most recommended when you look at the educational research on whether to run as a whole school, schools within schools, or the pathway. But to be clear, we do run dual language pathways. They're at our middle schools. So it's a little different at middle school. Because it's easier when you've got 600 kids on a campus as

033opposed to a smaller population. It's not just because of the 600 kids. It's also because it's not self-contained in middle school. They switch for subject. So it's content and they're switching for subjects. So it's a very different model than an elementary where they're with the same teacher all day. They don't switch for math. And, you know, they do some in some of the upper grades. They do do some departmentalization sometimes or they've played around with that. but they really have. It's more of what's called a self-contained model in elementary. Yeah. Is it okay? Please. Okay. Yeah. What you said about having been a teacher myself in... public schools. What you said really resonates with me that I hadn't thought about. If it isolates teachers to one teacher per regular education class at a site, that's

034very, very difficult for today's teachers, especially to have no collaboration. And I know our district is very committed to the idea of collaboration between our kids and our staff. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you for that. Well, President Walsh, I want to follow up on the middle school. If you recall the initial retreat that we brought this forward, we actually made the recommendation to go to one middle school because what we're seeing is we were close to the point that one of the two middle schools isn't going to have a program because of the staffing, right? It's much, much harder to staff. Middle school staffing is getting very difficult. We were at the point we were actually going to have to be offering some of it online. And that

035might still be the case. Right now we have somebody in there. It's not. the most ideal setup, but it's working and it seems to be working well right now at that campus, but that's person dependent. So, you know, whenever we start creating programs that are dependent upon one person only because they can make that work, we run ourselves into some trouble down the road when you can't staff. So we are watching middle school and we are very concerned. There was a point even at the end of last year before these conversations really had begun. to say we may not be able to continue to offer a strand at one of our middle schools because we can't staff it. And so it's just getting harder and harder to find. Even our elementary teachers, I will admit,

036are getting harder for us to find dual language teachers. So that is something we have to watch because if we can't staff it with teachers, we can't continue to run the program. So we're really... trying to make sure that that's something we can maintain. But that was one of the pieces with middle school that also is a challenge for us. Yeah, no, I recognize the program you're referring to with the staffing. It's thriving right now, but I do understand when you talk about sustainability. Right. If you are dependent on one particular person, that's not setting yourself up for sustainability. I understand. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So really, you know, ideally, and I can't remember because I don't have the slide right in front of me with the numbers for middle school dual language. But if I

037recall, you know, they're both hovering maybe around 150 to 200 students. I don't know if I'm kind of seeing if I'm getting fact checked over there. About 50 students at a grade level. About 50 students at a grade level. Yeah. So, you know, at some point that might become too small for us to maintain. So if the elementary numbers continue to decline. And if one elementary continues to decline more than the other, that will have an impact, obviously, at the middle school that those students feed into. And at some point, we could get too small that you can't maintain that at a middle school. So we're going to have to watch both of those. Thank you very much. Other questions? I have one. So I know one of the things that I've heard a little

038bit about, so two pronged questions, two questions or two separate questions. is, you know, there's a new development that's slated to open in Ahwatukee in two years. We have the, you know, the other option happening up here in Tempe. And I want to know, like, have we reached out to the demographer about that to take those into consideration? I believe the one in Ahwatukee was announced, you know, that was announced prior to even... the Upper Canyon developed. So I imagine that was included at least in the west side projections. Is that correct? Correct. Both the Ahwatukee and the development that slated for off of Guadalupe Road, the Kyrene Cabana, I believe it's called, both of those were taken into consideration. You know, one of his statements was it's really important to understand that a few

039hundred new units on a base of, I think I'll get this right, 68,000 existing housing units is really insignificant when he runs the numbers. So it doesn't impact. I think it would depend on how many, like, are the units one bedroom, studio apartments, two bedroom, you know, so I recognize there's a lot of variability there. So that is helpful. The other thing that I hear quite frequently, we talk a lot about being really clear with our criteria is. well, why didn't you just choose the buildings that are in a better condition? You should keep your newer buildings, close your older buildings. And how does that work? And I'm curious how to kind of balance that. I know we really rely heavily on our 10-year capital, you know, how we are investing our capital money and

040how the schools are being maintained. I know we do the roofs and the HVAC. I don't know if maybe... Is this maybe a question? I'm looking over at Chris. It is, Mr. Herman. I'm going to hand that over. Mr. Herman. But kind of talking through that, like what does that look like to assess a building's standing? When does something maybe need to, you know, I was built in the 70s. Maybe I need to go in for a refresh. How does that work? Because if we look on our site, it can be a little difficult to find. I'm happy to add some context to that topic. We at Kyrene have been fortunate to have the support of our community in the form of bonds and overrides for many years. And we've talked with our board, and

041we just talked about this on October the 14th, that without bond and capital override money, there's not enough money provided by our state to keep our buildings in the same condition that they are today. So what that means is we're able to take a long-term view of capital planning across the district. So we look 10 years out. It's very hard to predict the future, but we do our best to look at what kinds of systematic changes need to happen across all of our building sites and maintain all of our buildings in a consistent manner. So we have a plan for keeping our buildings in good shape. It also means we have the funding to be able to keep the buildings in good shape and actually perform to the plan. The other thing, so I would

042say none of our buildings are in disrepair. None of our buildings are in such dire shape that we would say these conditions are such that it means we would prioritize keeping one building over another. We also know that all of our buildings are aging, right? They're all over an average of 35 years old. At some point in the next 25 years, every single one of those buildings is going to need to have the same kind of, I don't want to say remodel kinds of projects, but when you talk about plumbing and you talk about behind the walls, up in the ceilings. Every building is going to need that, regardless if the building was built in the 80s or the 90s. All of our buildings at some point will need that. Right. So I don't think

043you can prioritize one or the other. So I think, you know, we've looked at our building conditions. We don't see like such a dramatic change. We think all of our buildings are maintained very well. They're maintained in the same manner. And that's because we have the support from bonds and overrides. The other question may be. to board member Nelson's question or other point to your question is we have a structural engineer that comes in, an independent agency that comes in and evaluates every one of our buildings on a five-year rotating basis. So every building will get a structural analysis within five years' time. And that means that if there are some issues where we feel like there is a structural problem, a major problem with our building, it absolutely gets addressed, right? So, again, we

044have not seen anything in those structural reviews that would warrant us to say a particular building just needs to be. put on a different list than those that we would like to keep, right? So those are the systems that we have in place today to maintain our facilities. Those are the systems that we have in place to make sure that they are on a forward-looking basis, getting the day-to-day repairs that we do internally, but also have an independent agency assess really the bones of the building if you were to look at it that way. Great. Thank you. That's really helpful. And just as a follow-up here, in case, unless anybody has something else they want to jump in. The other piece, when we talk about capital projects and our plan, the plan also includes like

045the district complex, which is more than just this office building. It is the bus depot. It is the print shop. It is quite a few different things. And that we're still, I think almost we're in the middle of its very first. major amount of work since it was built. When was the district office built, Mr. Herman? I don't even remember. I believe it was 1989. So since 1989, and so we started the project to refresh it, to bring it up to ADA codes, the new HVAC. I can't even remember all of the different things because it hadn't been touched since. It was born, basically. Okay. Yes. Can I just maybe add to one thing? The one thing we talked about with our board on the importance of that is we have treated the buildings on

046this complex differently than we treated the buildings at our school facilities. So when I talked about that 10-year capital plan, that was in place for our school facilities, but we really were not doing the same types of projects. at the same frequency. In fact, many of the structural things that we've done at this building have never been done in the last 30 or 30 plus years since this complex was done. So that's because, again... We wanted to make sure that this building was treated the same as the others. So even though there's a significant investment that has gone into this building, it is now part of the 10-year capital plan, meaning we shouldn't be expecting like $15.8 million updates to this building because it will be on the regular maintenance schedule that our schools are.

047Is that correct? Correct. Correct. Yes, absolutely. And it would be treated in the same standards. Board Member Nelson, I just want to point out again, I know we can't say this enough. We say it in our budget presentations. I know Mr. Herman says this almost every time he speaks. That money that was used, the capital funding, could not be used. to bridge the $7 million gap that we're talking about with maintenance and operations. In Arizona, that is not by our choice. That is by our state's choice that we are not able to combine those funds. So those dollars could not be used to relocate. And I think you also, you know, again, I want to talk about some pros and cons about whether it be the district office, because I will tell you before we

048brought that forward to the board a couple years ago, We knew, right, we had already been starting to talk about the need for a long-range plan and reconfiguration and everything. And we actually talked about the district office complex. And we talked about would it make sense to have that be a building that we would recommend that you close. But you brought this up. And I just think it's super important to know that, you know, again, it's not just this administration building. It is a huge print shop. And there's actually two facilities that house that with some very large, massive machines. It is our transportation bus yard. That doesn't just include where we park our buses. There's fuel lines. So we run all of our own fuel out of that transportation yard. Our buses get their

049propane. Our buses get their fuel right from there. There's maintenance garages that are there. All of our buses are worked on in that yard there. Then you also have all of the facilities there. And then we have multiple warehouses that store all of the things that obviously you need to maintain a district. So I think there might be some. thinking that, oh, it'd be easy to pick this office up and move it to a school. And while that may be true, this administration office, the rest of the complex, not so easy. I'm not so certain that starting a bus up. you know, in a neighborhood and trying to drive out the number of buses we're driving would necessarily be something that would be well-received. So we did consider that. We even went as far as

050looking at, well, what if we leased or what if we looked for another piece of land outside of a school that you could run your transportation yard because clearly you can't just move that to a school. And the cost associated with that was so astronomical that it wouldn't make sense. Those discussions did happen before the board, and I know it was the previous board that voted to move forward with the safety and security updates here at district office. I have a few questions. One of the things that I've been hearing a lot about are our beloved programs like our AVID and some of the agricultural programs. I just want to make sure there's some flexibility as we're looking forward that things like lighted fields or band. programs that are beloved, all those types of things

051are flexible, are doable again as we move forward. And we're not considering canceling any of that type of, because I know that is a major concern within our community. And how will that work? Um, so thank you for that question. Good question. So absolutely. We know our programs, right, are what makes a lot of our schools really special. Many of the programs that you just mentioned are actually happening at other campuses as well. So typically there are some one-offs where a school only has a singular program, but I'll use AVID as an example, is happening at multiple middle schools. It's not just. one middle school. So yes, many of those programs would still continue. Some program changes may occur if a school is split and one school is doing a different program. So, you know,

052those may be discussions as the schools merge together and they talk about what are we going to implement going forward. So things like band and all of that are at all of our middle schools. So like I said, there's a couple one-off programs and really that will come down to we're working with Hanover Research and some Our school effectiveness team and our talent management team working with our lead principals and our school leaders to identify what does that merge look like? Those will be part of the conversations is how do you build the culture at this school now that you have a merged community? Do you do all the programs? Do you decide which programs as a community you want to keep and which ones you don't want to do anymore based on, you know,

053what the school looks like? But many of them will be very similar, especially at middle school. Most of the middle school programs are on every campus. There's just a couple one-offs. Okay. And then what about like lighted fields or agricultural programs that are... So the lighted fields, we do have two campuses in the district right now that have lighted fields. But just because, again, no decisions have been made as to what's going to happen with the facilities yet. Right. You know, lighted fields are a huge asset for the district. And I anticipate that we would find a way to be utilizing those lighted fields. And it might actually open up more access. for more of the community to utilize the lighted field. So there's a lot of opportunities for us to talk about down the

054road once we decide what's happening with the facilities. But that's an asset that you wouldn't just necessarily not. use anymore. And the agriculture, again, would just depend on the different schools. So if the school community was split between two campuses, it could be that one of the other middle schools or both of them decide that this is a great program and they want to pick it up. It doesn't mean everything will stay, but it doesn't mean everything will go either. Okay. And then the other theme that I'm seeing is there's a lot of ask for delays. And I know we've talked about this before, that delaying could equal dollars, obviously. Can we talk about that a little bit more as well, too? So next year, we were close to 2 million, I think. Yeah. So

055the delays, and you jump in, Mr. Herman, if you think anything, the pros and cons of delaying, right? So obviously the pro is you aren't closing schools next year. Closing schools is never a pro. So, you know, it does delay it for a minute. But I do think it also creates a lot more uncertainty for staff. It creates a lot of anxiety because they know it's coming. But now when is it coming? Is it changing which schools again? Could it possibly change again? And so there is all of that. But really, it comes down to the fiscal issue, right? So it puts the district in a situation. If we delay, we will be making cuts. We have to bring a balanced budget to the governing board. You, by law, have to approve a balanced budget.

056We will balance that budget. whether it's through school closure or whether it's through the list of what's at stake. And we have to start to prioritize and identify some of those other list of things that we shared in previous meetings and retreats. And I think for, you know, districts recommendation was the con to that is we are now at the point that anything on that list is going to have a huge impact on the student experience for kids in Kyrene. And we believe that that is much more detrimental. Knowing this is coming, regardless that we are going to have to close schools at some point. I mean, I don't know if you've been watching the news this week, but more and more districts are making announcements and more and more districts. And I happen to

057be at the fall leadership conference this week, and I ran into numerous superintendents that shared we're in the same boat and we haven't made our announcement yet, but we're looking at 10 schools. We're looking at 13 schools. We're looking at seven schools. You know, we're looking at two. You can't, again, even if our state came through and gave us, how do you say this, Mr. Herman, all the money to bridge the gap, it's still not good and fiscally responsible for us to be maintaining and operating buildings at 40, you know, 50% capacity. That's not a good use of our taxpayers' dollars. And we really feel we wouldn't be doing our due diligence if we didn't bring that to the board. Do you want to add to that? Because I know you've, do you have anything?

058With the dollars? You know, I think we've said this. I've tried to say it as much as I can. Every year we respond to what our enrollment and funding changes might look like. And over the last nine years, we've had about $24 million less money. because of enrollment impact. We've also reduced our budget by that same $24 million. So when our superintendent says we balance our budget, we have done these things over the last nine years to keep in right sizing with what our funding is. And I think that is good fiscal practice, regardless of what entity or business that even personally, right? That to me is the best practice. But there are some things that are just harder to do. Like, for instance, we've outsourced grounds. We can't outsource grounds again, right? We've made

059changes to our medical plan. There are limits to what you can do to your medical plan. We've made changes to our insurance deductibles. There's limits. You can't, you know, you have to have insurance, right? So it gets a little bit harder because we've looked at all the population of where we can try to save money, lower our expenses, and protect our classroom. That's the other thing that's really important because we're at the point now where And again, I'm always a believer in we'll make whatever changes we can, however it can protect our classrooms. But it gets harder as you do this for nine or 10 years. we want to maintain that same high level of classroom spending in our budget. That's a point of pride for our district that we don't want to see, you

060know, see declining. But I think the longer this, the longer you wait, the more we have to make decisions with our limited resources on whether we want that limited resource to go towards a building or whether we want that limited resource to go towards things that are in a classroom or supportive of our students. And I think we're kind of at that tipping point where to make sizable budget reductions. We've talked about the what's at stake list and the things that might have to be considered for level three. Those are our realities right now. And we try to do everything we can to protect the classrooms and those decisions from having to be made. But that's why we're having this discussion now. We have been doing this for nine years. This is not a brand

061new thing that's happening for Kyrene. You may hear other districts talking about big, massive changes, but we have done this every year. We're not waiting until it gets to the point where we... have no other options, if that makes sense. And I think we shared, right, had it not been for COVID, this conversation would probably have happened about two to three years ago. We'd be at this point in the process, but really coming out of COVID, we were able to maximize some of the one-time funding. We were able to maximize being able to find areas, as Mr. Herman just identified some of those areas, to make those cuts up to $24 million and really do a nice job of maintaining the 75% in the classroom and still making those cuts. But it's getting to a

062point now where we're not going to be able to. I think tipping points are great. board. Okay. Thank you. I really think it was important and worth repeating because I know we've discussed it before in the past. Just wanted to clarify because that is a question that comes up a lot. So I appreciate it. Thank you. Member Collins. How did you know? Was it the way I was looking at you? It was the eye contact. I'm glad Member Satri asked her question in regards to delaying the process because we spoke of, Mr. Herman mentioned level three, where certain things will have to be cut. So one of the things that I was hearing as well, especially when I met with some people, we have ESP. For those of you who don't know what ESP stands

063for, that's Educational Support Staff. And so, you know, we're living in tough economic times here, as you guys know. So and I'm going to put people business out there, not with names. But some of these people rely on government assistance because. of how they're paid. You know, there are a lot of people who work in education, whether you believe it or not, they live off of government assistance. And so if we delay this process, some of these people, they're going to be, they're already full of anxiety now. And so, of course, being a current educator and a union leader and part of the AEA Board of Directors, that's something that concerns me is, what does this look like? for our educational support staff. And when I say education support staff, that's our bus drivers, that's

064our cafeteria workers, that's our aides, our health aides. What does that look like for them going forward here? And, you know, and I just want to mention this. People complaining, that's fine, that's their prerogative. But understand this. I was at a board of directors meeting on Saturday. I'm not going to say the district. You know, I'm getting better at not calling districts out. I was speaking to a few people from a district and they were like, yeah, at least you guys are telling your people what schools they're like. We're talking about closing eight schools and we have no idea. And they're closing them next year. So these people don't know what their jobs are going to look like next year. And they're closing eight schools next year. It's not even a debate. They're closing. And

065these people like, I don't even know what school I'm going to. They haven't told us anything. They haven't even really done any meetings with the community. So just let's keep that in mind that this could be a lot worse and handled a lot worse. So let's be grateful for the position that we're in, at least having these discussions. But back to my original thought, like what happens to our ESP people? If we don't close? Both. Are you just saying, are you making that just as a point or do you want us to talk about what the process would be if we had to cut positions? Yes. Yes. Both. Like, so, for example, say we consolidate because I hate saying close and consolidate. You know, I believe it was a young lady from KTA. She was

066like, I'm a health aide. Some schools don't need two health aides. So what happens to her and people in her position? Cafeteria workers, they have, you know, they're fully staffed. What happens to those people? I'm going to let Miss Gibson speak about and a message did go out to all staff. a week ago, maybe a little over a week ago. I think it was about a week ago. Yeah, it's been since fall break, but a message went out to staff. You are absolutely correct. And I think Mr. Herman shared this publicly in one of our retreats. And I just want to share this so people have a general idea of about how many staff we're talking. Should we close the schools that are proposed to be closed? As we just mentioned, an elementary school is

067looking at about, I'm just going to round up, about eight positions. Some of those are The ESP positions you're talking about, some of those are administrative positions that you are talking about. Certified positions really, right, go where the children are. And instructional assistant positions that directly support students would go with the students. At a middle school, you're talking about 13.5 positions that would be consolidated or, you know, we would no longer need those positions. However. We do have a process for that and what that sounds like, because it doesn't just mean because your position's gone, the person's gone. So I'll let Ms. Gibson share. So I shared some information. It's just like an overview of what the process could look like. But once we know if schools are closing or how many schools are closing,

068that will help us determine the need for staff at other sites. And so for ESP staff, we would handle that very similar than what we would do with a certified staff member. And we would ask them to complete a survey with their interest. You know, you are correct. If you have a school secretary and that school is closing and it's merging with another school, you may not need two school secretaries. But there might be another position that is a vacant position that. you know, somebody could go into that would be very similar in nature. But, you know, of course, we rely on natural attrition first. And, you know, there were probably people that are going to make a decision to retire or people decide not to come back. So we'll look at natural attrition, look

069at staffing needs, have people fill out surveys, what their general interests are, but then what are they actually qualified to do and see if we can match them into positions that would be something that they are qualified to. to hold on to. But that is also a concern. You know, we do have a lot of vacant positions that are, you know, currently available for staff. So, you know, I do feel that we should be able to place, you know, as many people as possible. I can't, you know, like I said, I can't predict the future, but we would hope that we'd be able to place everybody. And that would be if we closed. If we don't close, let's say we didn't close any schools and we had to still reduce and bring a balanced budget

070and we start looking at that list of things that we'd be cutting, we may be more likely to need to do a RIF because then we, you know, are going to have to cut positions. It's not just. close these positions that I just mentioned and try to fill some vacant. It would be we'd actually have to take people out of the system and close some of those positions. Close the position or reduce hours. And we call that a riff. If you hear us say the word riff for board members and the public, a riff is a reduction in force. There was a headline today about a district that's getting ready to do a big reduction in force. You'll see that a lot. Districts will announce they're going to do a layoff is sometimes the word

071used, but it's really called a RIF for us. And it means we have processes already established with both KEA and KESPA on how we do reduction in forces when we need to, but we would be looking at probably having to do some level of a layoff. Mr. Herman? I just wanted to add, Ms. Gibson talked about positions that we might be able to help people find. Just to give some context to that, we would love for people to drive a bus and be an instructional assistant. We have a lot of positions across our ESP staff. Last year, we had the equivalent of 120 40-hour positions that were unfilled. 120. So again, every position may not line up perfectly, but we do have a lot of positions that we would love to be able to fill

072with maybe a relocation of employees. We always love to have new bus drivers too. I'm always going to put that plug out there. But it's not 1, 2, 5, 10 positions. It's 120. Member Davis, I want to be cognizant of the time because we have some super students. I just want to put one thing out for this board to confirm. It's a question for this board, not for any of our district leaders. I'm sure all of you have gotten some of the same questions that I've got, which is, would you consider a different proposal? And we're hearing from our community with lots of well-thought-out and creative ways to try to get us to a result that they think is better for our community. Just for me, Right now we've got our four-school proposal. I've heard

073two different versions of a five-school model. One keeps three schools at Ahwatukee. Another one keeps a small school on the east side. I've seen a model that is, I think, a three-school model, which is the Lakewood plan, as we've heard, where you actually consolidate both Altadena and Centennial at... the Akimal El Al location and use Australia for that purpose. I've seen a model where Lagos is going to attract. I've had people propose that we swap out Mariposa for Ninos, which is merging into Wagner. I'm giving you just by way of examples. And when individual people come up to me and say, would you consider this? My response is always, absolutely. I'll consider every idea in good faith that's put before me. But... Personally, I don't think it'd be appropriate two of the seven hearings in

074for us to give any direction to the district at this very moment to redo maps when we're getting some feedback from some communities on certain maps and different feedback from different communities on different maps. So to people who approach me, I say, please, by all means, give me your ideas. I'll consider everything a good faith. And part of the reason I'm saying this out loud is so people are hearing these options. on the meeting and they think about, oh, I like this idea or I don't like this idea, they're going to reach out to the board and give their feedback. But right now, in this moment, I don't think it would be appropriate to do any map changes until we've gotten through all of the hearings. I just want to make sure the board is

075aligned with that. Yes, thank you for that. And that's good information. And it's the same position that I feel as well. I've gotten a lot of feedback. I asked a specific question tonight because it just helps me think of the answer to it, help me think of the bigger picture, which is something that I need to be reminded of since I'm new on the board. I tend to get, you know, looking here, looking there. So that's a very, very good feedback. Thank you for that. And if I could just take one second. Please. I just want to say to our superintendent and to our staff here that. One thing that has become incredibly apparent to me is that this school district, as you said, for years has been facing the possibility of this happening. And

076I think you have done a fabulous job of making the community feel like we were solid and there wasn't too much to worry about. And the next year we'd go into it and then we had COVID and we... struggled with that and now we're coming back and and in a sense i think you're hoist on your own petard so to speak you did such a great job that people are absolutely astounded that we're in this position but it's because you've made it work and i know that takes a tremendous amount of work and i want you to know i i appreciate it and um I try and speak about that as much as I can when I'm out and about. So thank you for all your work that you've done. Yeah, I just I do

077want to I know I'm not asking the question, but I will tell you it's a question we get significantly in the district inbox that I just want to bring up. I know we're getting short on time, but I think it's worth mentioning. We get asked a lot about the criteria. And as you know, on the Web page, also our communications team updated the Web site. to include some more of the graphs and more frequently asked for data. So it's easier than having to dig through the presentations. But the key considerations and parameters are up there. And so I just want to remind everybody, you know, we get asked a lot about enrollment. Well, we're the highest enrolled or we, you know, we have this many students and what that doesn't make any sense. And I

078want what I want everyone to hear is that individual school enrollment was absolutely not a primary factor. in the committee's decision-making process. And that was intentional. So some districts that take the approach that goes school by school and do this incrementally, this is also why you see so many schools being recommended at one time is because we didn't take an incremental approach. We said, let's take a long range approach. Let's, and this was discussions we had with the previous board when we formed the committee, when the board decided to form the committee is let's look into the future of Kyrene. Yes, today's important, but we need to see what is the landscape. Our job as leaders is to set this district up for success. And I say us as leaders as a whole. for the

079future. And so we were very intentional about giving the committee the information. Enrollment was considered, but enrollment by far and away was not the primary factor. It was one of the criteria. And so I think that that just is important to say. I also think Dr. Ostmeyer alluded to this. There is competing criteria. You can't... do this work without having competing priorities or competing criteria. And so in some cases, while it may not make sense, or every school checks a certain box, when you start to have those competing criteria priorities, it doesn't always work exactly right. The reality is. Every one of our schools fits so many of the boxes. And so at some point you could say, again, it's why letter grades, it's why programs, there's such great programs on every campus. If you

080start to say, here's the program, we should stay open. We have the best school spirit. We have the, you know, the A this year. We had a B this year. We have an A this year. This is the, you know. If you start to use all those things to determine, it really starts to limit how many schools in Kyrene you could consider. So they really looked at the number one thing being focusing on district-wide optimization of utilization of our 25, what I would call district assets, our 25 buildings. And so it really was taking that long-range look. to say, how do we set this district up to have schools strategically located across the district? Again, that's easier to do with elementaries. There's way more elementaries. When you have less middle schools, that gets a little

081bit harder when you're only talking six. So I just, I do want to just be clear that it was really about maximizing those resources, those 25 assets strategically. Right or wrong, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm saying that is the approach the committee took. So, you know, it's going to be up to the board to decide, agree, disagree with that approach. But that was the approach that the committee made their recommendation on. And it's why the demographer was able to come with so many models. Because, again, it could have been multiple different schools that could have been selected. in those models to still get that outcome and keep that regional approach. So I hope that that helps explain some of that. But the key considerations and parameters were not easily accessible on the

082website. They are now. They've moved them into one slide because it was pulled from one of the demographer slides. So if anybody's interested, they're there. Thank you for sharing that. Board, this is not the last time we're going to have an opportunity to discuss, so we will plan on having further conversations and study sessions along the way. I'm going to take a quick recess, and we're going to reconvene our meeting just as soon as we possibly can to recognize our super students. Included at 612. All right. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Item 2.1 is convene our regular meeting. We are convening our regular meeting at 6.20 p.m. Thank you to all our super students for hanging with us. We appreciate your patience. At this time, all blue cards do need to be turned in to

083our board secretary, Ms. Nancy Mosier, if you wish to speak to the board during the call to the public portion of the meeting. So our governing board always meets in public to discuss the business of the district. The meetings are streamed live online. If you want to watch live and if you can't watch it live, a recording is made available on our YouTube channel just after the meeting. All of our board meeting agendas are posted at least 24 hours in advance on our website and on our district office. Our superintendent, Ms. Lartenius, as well as community members, teachers, school leaders, families, and most importantly, students are here with us this evening. Item 2.2 is our roll call. Board members, can you please state your name for the record? Cedric Collins. Bunny Davis. Amy Seytree. Trina

084Nelson. Kevin Walsh. Let the record show we have five board members present this evening. Item 2.3 is the moment of silence and the pledge. I do like to invite one of our school leaders to lead us here, and I do see the principal from Kyrene Apprende. That is Renee Corey. Principal Corey, would you mind please just standing? You don't have to come up to the podium, but if you could, please lead us in a moment of silence followed by the pledge. Thank you, Principal Corey. Item 2.4 is our district land acknowledgement. The Kyrene School District acknowledges that our community of schools is located on the ancestral lands of the O'odham and Peeposh people who have inhabited these lands since time immemorial. And with this land acknowledgement, the district formally recognizes traditional keeping and care of

085these lands by Native peoples allows us to be here today. Item 2.5 is our Kyrene promise. This is our district promise. We read it off at each of our board meetings. We promise to provide welcoming, inclusive learning environments in which every student is honored, valued, and feels a strong sense of belonging and purpose. We promise to provide rigorous, responsive learning environments in which every student is given what they need to develop knowledge, skills, confidence, and a passion for learning. And finally, we promise to provide vibrant, world-class learning environments in which every student believes they're empowered and prepared to make a meaningful impact on a rapidly changing world. Item 3.1 is the preview and approval of our meeting agenda. Board members, any changes to the agenda? Seeing no, someone like to make a motion to approve.

086Motion to approve. I have a motion by Vice President Nelson. Is there a second to her motion? Second. Second by Member Davis. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes five to zero. We are so excited to support and recognize our super students, but first, quickly, we have our superintendent update. That's item 4.1. Superintendent Tenius. Thank you, President Walsh, governing board members, staff, and community members here, either in person or joining us online. I am... There we go. Excited to share a few things going on around the district since our last meeting. So last week, Tempe Mayor Corey Woods proclaimed October 23rd as Thrive in Tempe Day. The proclamation was the kickoff to a campaign positioning Tempe as the prime destination for education in Arizona. It's a culmination of a

087year-long partnership among Kyrene, Tempe Union, Tempe Elementary, ASU, and the city of Tempe. We are all united in our belief that Tempe offers the best educational opportunities in the state from ABC to PhD. I was super proud to attend the proclamation along with a few of our governing board members, board member Satri, board member Davis, board member Collins, and also our executive director of communications and engagement, Aaron Helm, who was part of the team that developed the campaign. I would also like to thank our Kyrene Del Norte parent, Gabrielle Bruner, for attending, along with her daughter, Quinn, who represented Kyrene, who will be a future Kyrene kinder. So it is our hope that this campaign will extend our reach as we continuously work to grow and retain student enrollment in Kyrene. Also like to share,

088our fall festivities are well underway in Kyrene. Our Cerritos Roadrunners and our Sierra Suns hosted a combined trunk or treat and movie night event, bringing together students, families, and staff for one evening and two amazing celebrations. Events like this show what the Kyrene community is all about, working together to create joyful, supportive experiences that put students first. So thank you to principals Dr. Ely and Mr. Brian Gibson, the Cerritos and Sierra PTOs, and our staff and families for truly making this a night to remember. I am so, so proud to report that Kyrene has earned the GFOA, Government Finance Officers Association, Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the 29th consecutive year. This award is the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and reporting. Kyrene is one of just over 400 school

089districts nationwide to receive this honor for the 24 fiscal year. Over 13,000 public school districts in the country, this places our district among a select group committed to transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility. This could not be achieved without the dedicated work of our finance team, led by Kyrene CFO, Mr. Chris Herman, and our Director of Finance, Mr. Brian Lockery. So congratulations to our finance teams. It is really hard to believe that it is almost November, and that means Election Day is quickly approaching. So voters within Kyrene boundaries will see the M&O override continuation on their ballots. Funding provided by the override enables Kyrene to continue offering high-quality opportunities for students by funding one in five Kyrene teachers, by funding electives like jazz, mariachi, culinary, STEM, PE. and funding essential services such as occupational and physical

090therapy, and helping for us to be able to reduce class sizes. An important reminder, today is the last day to mail in your ballot, but you can still vote. After today, ballots must be dropped at a secure drop box on or before November 4th. For more information or to ask us a question about the override, head to kyrene.org slash elections. The Kyrene Foundation is hosting their annual donation drive to support Kyrene families during the holidays. This year, their goal is ambitious yet vital, raising $50,000 to provide for over 1,300 children at the Turkey and Trimmings Thanksgiving event. The generosity of our Kyrene community ensures that every child experiences the warmth, joy, and care of the season. If you are interested in making a donation or sponsoring a family, please visit the Kyrene Foundation at kyrenefoundation.org.

091And our upcoming positive parenting events is the Kyrene community is invited to attend two upcoming positive parenting events. On November 19th, the Tempe Coalition will be giving a presentation about the rise in fentanyl and will be providing Narcan training. On November 20th, families are invited to hear from Kyrene's exceptional student services team to learn strategies to support self-regulation and sensory processing for home and school. More information on these events can be found at kyrene.org slash positive parenting. And that concludes my superintendent's update. Thank you, Superintendent Tanyus. On 4.2, do any board members have statements they'd like to make this evening? Member Satri. Yes, I just wanted to remind our community that the Kyrene Family Resource Center has a Facebook page and they do list their needed items every, I'd say once a week. They're located

092next to Kyrene Ninos. So it's kind of that time of year. And if you're able to give, I just wanted to encourage our community that that is a resource. And if you're able to do that, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Member Satri. Member Collins. Well, mine was about the Kyrene Resource Center as well, but not for giving, but for assistance. So for, because I donate a lot there and I spent some time there. So they, you know, if you need items or things of that nature, they are open. I believe they pick up Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can go inside and grab items if you need them. And also, I'm excited to do Kyrene Super Kid tonight. I mean, we didn't have it last time, so I'm excited. Good to see all

093you guys here. Member Davis. Yes, thank you. I have a couple of things. I first would like to read a short report about as the appointed governing board member for the Kyrene Employee Benefit Trust, KEBT. I just want to, is this the right time? You could, or you could also do it at the committee report portion of the meeting later on. Why don't I do it then? Perfect. Because I have something else. Yes, go ahead. Okay, so folks, this will just take a couple of minutes. I want to get to our timing kids, super kids. So as a former teacher and counselor and a lawyer and a board member now, I see I'm one of the only, as are my fellow board members, elected officials with the direct responsibility to represent children in our society.

094And all those who are connected to them, moms, dads, aunties, uncles, friends, cousins, the whole ball of wax, okay? So I believe that I have a duty to fully understand, and I want to be sure that I understand all the words that I use when I'm talking to you guys. So that brings me to the famous DEI. There's been some coverage of DEI in terms of school districts recently. And I suddenly realized that I wasn't quite sure what that actually meant. So I did a little research and I was very excited to see that not only is it in the dictionary, but... Kyrene School District has our definition of it, and it's something that's very important to us. So I just wanted to take a minute to remind all of us, including myself, that DEI

095stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is a big deal for the school district. So what does diversity mean? I've asked a lot of people, and they look at me blankly. Know that in the dictionary, diversity means the state of being different, to give variety to, to be varied. And in the Kyrene school district definition, diversity means including or involving people from a range of backgrounds and different characteristics that make members of the school district community unique. So that's what, if anyone asks you or if you're wondering yourselves, that's diversity. In the dictionary, equity means the quality of being fair. So in Kyrene's school district, equity means understanding the unique challenges and barriers faced by individuals or subpopulations and ensuring people have what they need to participate in school or work to reach their full

096potential in life by making essential programs, services, activities, and technologies accessible to all. And then there's inclusion. So in the dictionary, inclusion is the state of being included to contain as parts of a whole. In Kyrene's definition, inclusion is creating conditions within an organization where each stakeholder feels accepted, affirmed, safe, empowered, and supported. while also striving for each stakeholder to have an equitable voice. So I'm proud to be on this board that defines these things so clearly. And if anybody gets into any conversations about what DEI is, now you know for sure. And if you want to ever... remind yourselves in our Kyrene policy manual, all of this can be found under district governance and it is policy 1-204, equal opportunity, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I know it's something we're all proud of. So

097I wanted to say that. Thank you, Member Davis. Vice President Nelson. Yes, I wanted to say I was able to go to the Kalina Trunk Fall Festival, but did have a trunk or treat. And it's always so fun. As board members, we get to go visit campuses during the more formal parts of the day, but it's always nice when you're able to join the community and kind of... be with the parents and the kids and the teachers. It's always a really special atmosphere. So I just wanted to say thank you for hosting such a wonderful night. And then also congratulations to all of our students who are in our quarter two sports. I know last week we had a lot of basketball, soccer tryouts. So congrats to those who, whatever team that you made, especially

098now that for some of our cut sports, we offer intramural teams as well for students to continue, you know, developing and learning with those different sporting skills. Thank you, Vice President Nelson. Wishing everybody a happy Halloween coming up. My older two are going up as characters I've never heard of before. My younger two are going as Bluey and Bingo because they're little and I can dress them whatever I want, and I think that's cute. So as they age, you have less and less control over what costumes they're in. So I'm taking advantage of it while I can. So if you had a chance to do any of your fall festivals or trunk retreats this past week, thank you to all the PTOs that put that work together. It was great. All right, main event. Item

0995.1. This is our Kyrene Super Students. We are very excited that you're here. This is by far the best part of the meeting. It's the best part of us being up here is to recognize our amazing Kyrene Super Students. So if you are here, Kyrene Super Students, it's because you've been nominated by your principal or by one of your teachers for demonstrating the virtues in the portrait of a Kyrene kid. And what does that mean? Well, we've got this graphic up here on the side, but... We as a district hope that when you leave Kyrene after eighth grade, that you have these virtues. And if you look up there, you'll notice it doesn't say strong test taker or really good at division. No, it talks about being an adaptable learner, about being a self-advocate or

100a community contributor, about being a good communicator, a critical thinker, a problem solver. or a collaborator. So of all the things we hope you leave when you leave Kyrene, we hope that you have these things. And if you're here today, it's because of all the kids on your entire school campus, your school leaders saw you. in the classroom, in the hallway, in the playground, and thought that you demonstrated these virtues better than anybody. And that's a very cool, special thing to celebrate. So we are excited to recognize you tonight. What's going to happen is each one of the board members is going to call up and recognize our super students one by one. And we're actually going to read out loud the nomination that was submitted for you. And after you get a chance to

101come on up, you're going to... turn around and look at your families. Don't look at us because your family is going to want to take pictures of you. So turn around, look at them. And when you have a chance to recognize, you'll step off to the side. We'll call up our next super student. We'll recognize them as well. And then afterwards, families, we're going to get an opportunity for a good group picture. We want to let our super students know that in addition to getting a very cool, fancy certificate, there is some swag from our sponsors, including certificates from Urban Air, as well as Zeke's Pizza, as well as Jeremiah's Ice, as well as the Kyrene Foundation. You're getting all the stuff. So it is well-deserved. We are excited for you to be here tonight.

102And parents and family members, I hope you're really proud because we're very proud of your kiddos. I'm here to start us off with the very first super student of the evening. She is a seventh grader from Kyrene Apprende, and that is Nia Robinson. Nia, come on up to that podium, turn around and look at your family. All right, so this is the nomination that's been submitted by Nia. She is being recognized as a community contributor and a communicator. Nia is a kind and compassionate young lady who truly embodies what it means to be a Kyrene kid. Nia consistently demonstrates empathy towards her peers and goes out of her way to welcome students who are new to the school or sitting alone. She perseveres through challenges with a positive attitude and communicates effectively, both verbally and

103non-verbally, always greeting others with a warm smile and a welcoming presence. Nia is always willing to jump in and help others and will enthusiastically say yes to any request or need. Nia always does the right thing, and her kindness and thoughtful nature, as well as her ability to work with any peer and communicate effectively, make her so deserving of this recognition. Congratulations, Nia. Okay, so I am pleased to welcome, also from Kairina Prende, 8th grader Violet Nelson to the front. Violet is being recognized as a self-advocate and collaborator. Violet is an extremely kind-hearted, hardworking student who has learned how to self-advocate for what she needs to succeed and is able to articulate her struggles and strengths with impressive maturity for her age. In addition, she values inclusivity and treating all students with kindness and respect.

104She is a peer tutor on campus, helping students with diverse needs, but also ensures all students at Emprende feel a part of our community. Her collaborative nature, kindness, and inclusivity is a model for all. We are proud of all that she brings to make our campus a positive place to be. Congratulations, Violet. And next, I have another eighth grader. This one from Kyrene Del Pueblo, Landon Foreman. Landon is being recognized as an adaptable learner. It is an honor to nominate Landon Foreman as a Kyrene Super Student. He is an exceptional student leader whose character, work ethic, and kindness make him a standout member of our Pueblo community. As a web leader, Landon models leadership through his actions, setting a positive example for his peers every day. Landon demonstrates leadership daily by giving his best effort

105in all three bands he participates in. And he is proudly first chair trumpet in all three. That's impressive. He plays with confidence and humility, which inspires those around him. Landon is not afraid to make mistakes or accept feedback. Instead, he uses those moments as opportunities to grow. He asks thoughtful questions, contributes meaningfully to class discussions, and consistently shows respect for both teachers and classmates. Beyond his musical and academic excellence, Landon is a kind, empathetic, and supportive peer who goes out of his way to help others. He is an excellent mentor to our beginning trumpet students, always willing to lend a hand or offer encouragement. His commitment to learning and perseverance shine through even when middle school presents challenges. In his advanced classes, Landon stands out as a hard worker, problem solver, and self-advocate who is

106truly excited about learning. His positive attitude, leadership, and resilience embody the portrait of a Kyrene kid as a collaborative, compassionate, and adaptable learner. We are so proud of Landon and all he contributes to our Pueblo Bulldog family. He is an outstanding representative for what it means to be a Kyrene Super Student. Congratulations, Landon. I have the pleasure of introducing 8th grader Kennedy Davis from Kyrene del Pueblo. Kennedy Davis is not only a Kyrene Super student, she is a living example of the portrait of a Kyrene kid. Kennedy exemplifies collaboration, self-advocacy, adaptability, communication, and critical thinking every single day, both in and out of the classroom. Before her own school day even begins, Kennedy volunteers at the neighboring elementary school, giving her time to help younger students. She challenges herself through advanced coursework, including two high

107school level classes, and has served as an active member of the National Junior Honor Society for the past two years. Kennedy serves as a mentor for our sixth grade Bulldogs in her role as a web leader. Kennedy's teachers describe her as a self-starter who is goal-driven, enthusiastic, responsible, and always prepared. Beyond her academic excellence as a Gates student, she is recognized for her kindness and encouragement towards others. These are the qualities that make her a valued friend and role model among her peers. A model of consistency and effort, Kennedy approaches every assignment with care and purpose. Her teachers note that she can always be counted on to stay focused, contribute thoughtfully, and demonstrate a true love of learning. Kennedy is a shining example of leadership, compassion, and excellence. The Kyrene Del Pueblo staff is proud

108to recognize her as a Kyrene Super Student and celebrates the many ways she helps make Pueblo Middle School an exceptional place to learn and grow. Congratulations, Kennedy. And I am very happy to introduce Kaitlyn McQueen, an eighth grader at Kyrene Akimelo. Kaitlyn is being recognized as an adaptable learner, community contributor, communicator, and collaborator. Caitlin approaches every subject with focus and curiosity. She asks thoughtful questions, seeks understanding, and challenges herself to grow academically. Her consistent effort and motivation to learn reflect a strong commitment to excellence. As a three-year member of the AVID elective, Caitlin models collaboration and leadership. She demonstrates organization, inquiry, and perseverance, skills that help her and her peers succeed. Her positive influence helps build a classroom culture centered on effort, respect, and teamwork. Through her involvement in Best Buddies, Caitlin demonstrates compassion and

109inclusion. She builds meaningful relationships with students of all abilities and ensures that every student feels valued and supported. Caitlin embodies the portrait of a Kyrene kid. She is curious in learning, collaborative in spirit, confident in her leadership, and compassionate in her actions. She represents the absolute best of Akimau'al Middle School. Congratulations, Kayden. All right, all right, all right. Also, can you guys hear me okay? Is the mic working? All right, also from Kyrene Akimau'al, we have Mr. Kayden Ferguson, eighth grade. Caden is being recognized as an adaptable learner, community contributor, and collaborator. Caden is a bright, driven, and genuinely kind-hearted student who leads with empathy, integrity, and quiet confidence. He consistently set a positive example for his peers, both in the classroom and beyond. With his award-winning smile, did he do it? Did he do

110it? And inclusive attitude, Caden has a natural ability to make others feel welcome, valued, and respected. His leadership shines not through volume, but through action. He listens to others, encourages teamwork, takes responsibility, and always steps up when help is needed. Caden contributes thoughtfully to class discussions, takes initiative in his learning, and is never afraid to ask questions or offer support to others. He treats his teachers with genuine respect and builds strong, positive relationships with everyone around him. Whether he's leading by example on the basketball court or collaborating with classmates on a project, Caden inspired those around him to be their best selves. He truly embodies what it means to be a Kyrene kid, an adaptable learner, self-advocate, community contributor, and collaborator. Congratulations again to all our super students. I'm going to invite up Apprende Principal

111Corey. I'm going to invite up Pueblo Principal Schakowsky. I'm going to invite up our Akim Al-Al Principal McCarthy. And if you are a school staff member or teacher at any of these schools, I'm going to invite you all up too. Come on up. And then board, we're going to come down. We're going to do ourselves a group picture. Family members, if you want to stand up and, like, come closer to get a good angle for the gram, feel free to do that. You don't have to be in your seat. Congratulations again to all our super students. All of our board meetings are over to the public. You're welcome to stay, but we know it's a school night. We also know the World Series is on. So if y'all want to head out, once again, thank

112you for being here and appreciate all you do for our families. Thank you. All right, item 6.1 is request to speak to governing board. As per our board policy 1302, governing board invites the viewpoints of citizens throughout the district. So you can address the board at a meeting in one of two ways. You can do it the good old-fashioned way, do it in person. To do that, you just fill out a blue card on the sign-in sheet that is right when you walk in. You can also submit public comment electronically. That's just done through the link that is sent out with every board meeting notice. The board gets all of those. public comments in their entirety and they're read into the minutes as well. Our state statute does prohibit the governing board from discussing the

113item that's not on the agenda, but we always listen and can ask district follow-up. And because we value input, we want to make sure everybody has an opportunity to address the board. We set a time limit. For in-person public comments, based on the number of blue cards we have submitted, so if we have 1 to 15 speakers, everybody will have 3 minutes to address the board. If we have 16 to 30 speakers, 2 minutes. And if we have 31 or more in-person public speakers, each person will be given 1 minute to address the board. Tonight we have 17. in-person public comments. That means each person will have two minutes to address the board. For some of you, you know the routine, but if this is your first time doing public comment, there's going to be

114a timer that's going to be on the screen that'll show you when your time is up. We're just going to call up each person to the podium, and we appreciate everybody for being here tonight to share their feedback with the board. Your comments and your reflections are so valuable to us. We're going to start off with our first public speaker of the evening. That is the Reverend Erin Tamayo, who will be followed by Angela Fox. Good evening. President Walsh, Superintendent, and members of the board, my name is Erin Tamayo, and I'm a Carindel Norte Dual Language Academy parent. I'm also an instructor at ASU, a local pastor, and a bilingual educator. And I first want to start off by saying thank you for maintaining the Dual Language Academy model at Norte and for recognizing the

115value that this program brings to the community. We are deeply grateful. Also, as a member of the Defiende a Norte or Stand for Norte organizing group, I also want to express our solidarity with our sister schools who are still facing possible closure. We know that this is an incredibly difficult time. Please know that the Kyrene del Norte community stands with you. As North Day transitions from a neighborhood school to an open enrollment campus, we hope to partner with you, our board, and district staff to ensure its success. One key concern that's come up is ensuring equitable access for all families, especially since transportation will no longer be provided. Diversity, maintaining a balance of Spanish and English native speakers is what makes our dual language academy so special. And transportation from the neighborhood in South Phoenix

116has been a part of ensuring equity and access. So to address this, I want to propose two ideas. The first is to please survey current families to understand who might be impacted by the loss of transportation, paying special attention to our English language learners. And second, please consider forming a dual language advisory committee, including parents, teachers, and community members to monitor enrollment and access, support equity, and help guide the future of dual language education in our district, similar to what you're planning to do with the Gifted Academy. Together, we can ensure that Norte remains a model of excellence and inclusion where every child inclusives. Oh, thank you so much for your continued commitment. Thank you, Reverend Tamayo. Our next speaker is Angela Fox, who will be followed by Crystal Chow. Good evening. Kyrene prides itself

117in its timeless spending model, and I would like to introduce you to a timeless public school. In the heart of Kyrene lies Mariposa Elementary. Families have come to these meetings sharing how generations have specifically chosen Mariposa, and I, too, am a Kyrene kid. By 7.15 a.m., our community comes to life as countless tributaries of families make their way through the community because Mariposa has the highest in-boundary percentage of any Kyrene school at 66%. These tributaries converge to form a mighty river of children because Mariposa's occupancy rate is also the highest in the district at 75%. The teachers, with an average tenure of 10 years, guide this river into the school. The insight isn't just measured by test scores, which are excellent, but by its A-plus rating, which Mariposa has earned five consecutive times, another data

118point that is the highest in the district. For over a decade, Mariposa has provided a safe and learner-focused environment. innovative instruction, and holistic student support which provides the foundation for their students to perform to the very best of their abilities, resulting in high student achievement. This exceptional public education is provided to a highly diverse group of students, including my own children who are half Asian, and to the 43% of families who are economically disadvantaged. These are the reasons Mariposa has withstood the test of time and parents are choosing the school in a state that is eroding all public education. Please keep Mariposa open because it's diverse, inclusive, highly performing, strong neighborhood. It's everything we want our public schools to be, and it has not contributed to the reasons we're here today because it has consistently

119had high enrollment and it's the most financially efficient school with low operational costs. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fox. Our next speaker is Crystal Chow, who will be followed by Tammy Begay. Good evening, everybody. Crystal Chow here. I want to share what happened over the last two weeks because it matters. On October 16, a few of us Aki parents traveled over the I-10 to attend the first regional meeting. We made it there safely in case anyone was worried. But when we arrived, the atmosphere felt tense and uninviting. The next day, many of us parents connected with families across the district, and the two things kept coming up again and again. First, atmosphere was not a representation of a community feel. And second, many families did not attend due to needing child care. So being the

120fast, active parents and determined people we are, a few of us decided to change that. We wanted to roll out the red carpet for the superintendent, the governing board, and the entire Kyrene community. We wanted everyone to walk in and feel welcomed, not worried. In five short days while working full-time and raising kids, we created a kids club for all families, bought 300 cookies, gathered decorations, organized volunteers, and even had a CPR-certified, background-checked, child care expert lined up to help our junior honors society. We asked our band and cheerleaders to greet guests to make it feel like a celebration and not a confrontation because no one should walk into a meeting feeling unwelcomed. Now, I'll admit, in the midst of all the chaos, I did forget to fill out the facilities form for the kids

121club. But what happened next was not okay. For almost three hours, as we decorated, district staff were there. Not once did they tell us we were doing anything wrong. In fact, they even helped us figure out where to place a few balloon arches to block doors for their convenience. But when the superintendent arrived, everything else changed. She ripped the tablecloths off the tables. She took down the decorations. Yes, that is what popped the balloons. She yelled at parents, students, and teachers to get out of the room, saying we weren't allowed to be there before the board meeting started, that the students were not allowed to participate because it wasn't a school-sponsored activity. Her staff then told us we couldn't have the child care in room D1. I asked respectfully if the kids could sit in

122the lobby. To be continued tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Chow. Our next speaker is Tammy Begay, who will be followed by Catherine Peters. Good evening to the superintendent board members here. From the doorway all the way around to my family and friends behind me and the doorway out. I'm here to represent my son, Sakai Bigay. He goes to Mariposa along with other students. Again, I'm also here to represent all the kids as well, all of our Native American kids who will be affected by this. Did we once think about some of them like special ed that was brought up earlier? You know, that's one thing that I'm thinking about for my son. My son is my priority. I have to take care of my son. Through that, I depend on your staff. And like

123I said before, he's learned a lot. He's come, he's learned a lot and he's coming through with a lot more. I also think that we're forgetting the disability for our kids. You know, they, Mariposa to me, in my eyes, I see that they welcome the kids. They don't label the kids. Today, my son was labeled as a them. at another school, your school through the Kyrene District. And I didn't like that. IEPs come in, but to them and their eyes are labeled as them. They are disabilities. Something needs to be done. So keep Mariposa open because they never labeled my son as of them. Please take this in consideration. And with that, did you guys know that Native American kids are here? And 23% of them are within your school district. And 30 students are

124at Mariposa at this time. So consider and rethink, because sometimes we, as Native Americans, come up from North to make a living out here. And we depend on your staff to teach our kids, you know, so that we can make a living out here as well, along with everybody else. So just keep that in mind. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fagey. Our next speaker is Catherine Peters, who will be followed by Kristen Cox. Hello again. You guys know me. My name is Catherine Peters, and I'm still here representing Carving Down Millennium. I first want to thank you all for posting those additional information based on the FAQs. It shows me and I'm sure a lot of other parents that you're listening to us and you're answering the questions, asking the questions that we're asking and

125you want the answers. Just listening here. being here for the study session, you know, a lot of the questions that come up. So you guys are listening. So I just want to point that out and say, thank you. Um, going back to millennial, I've been here. You guys know my story. You guys know how I get emotional. Um, you know how I feel. So I won't bore you with all that, but, um, since I won't be able to make it tomorrow to the public hearing, I just wanted to say that I'm still here. I'm still trying to fight for our school. I understand the circumstances. I understand, especially after sitting during the studying session, the dire need of this situation, but I'm still going to sit here and fight for our school. I just want

126to highlight some of the stuff that I spoke about last week when I saw you guys all at the public hearing at Ocumal. And thank you, Waukema, for hosting last week. If you guys are here, I didn't get to tell you guys thank you, so thank you for that. But I just want to highlight that our school, bigger school, will be going into a smaller school, which I think is, again, underutilizing the building, the wonderful building that we have. And I know that a lot of people have brought up the CCD programs, and I know that you guys have mentioned that things are going to go out, communication is going to go out to families, so I appreciate that. And I know it's hard to look into the crystal ball, but I think, you know,

127we maybe do need to have some ABCD, you know, scenarios so parents feel a lot at ease. We have a lot of CCD students at Millennial, and they're very anxious right now about what's going to happen to their kids. And then I just want to highlight the M&O override. You know, please vote for it. Please vote yes. I did. My ballot's in the mail. I got the text that it got counted. So that's one more vote close to there. And again, I just want to say thank you. Our falcons soar high. And please don't flip our wings. Thank you. Appreciate it. Our next speaker will be Kristen Cox, who will be followed by Jennifer Guzzi. Good evening. All right. Blindly closing schools based on vague or unclear criteria is a risky approach. Shuttering eight campuses

128to address budget gaps may seem expedient, but the long-term consequences for families, enrollment, and community trust will only become clear when it's too late to reverse course. I urge you to consider a more measured, thoughtful plan, one that minimizes closures and explores creative alternatives to meet financial goals, and to ask analytical, data-driven questions like, which schools are retaining families year over year? Where is enrollment steady or declining the least? Which campuses are performing well on school report cards and assessment metrics? These are the kinds of questions that should guide school closure decisions. Once closures are enacted, there is no undo button. We don't yet know how many families will leave nor how much money will truly be saved. Nobody has the crystal ball. Instead of drastic measures, please pursue strategic ones, solutions that preserve community,

129maintain student continuity, and still meet fiscal responsibilities. Right now, nearly 4,000 students will not feel the Kyrene promise. Please make this plan more transparent, more reasonable, unrooted, and clear factual criteria. Kyrene families deserve nothing less. And with the last few seconds, I do want to say something about dismissing enrollment and how you're doing the long-term planning here. I feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot and you're missing a learning opportunity about what is keeping schools moving and in the right direction and something that you can continue to adopt. versus just closing schools. Like, look at enrollment. There's something going right, and then there's other places where it's less right. And these are learning opportunities. Take them. Thank you, Ms. Cox. Our next speaker is Jennifer Guzzi, who will be followed by Stephanie Ingersoll. Hi,

130I'm a Murata and Pueblo parent. And before I get to what I was planning to say today, I need to just address something that keeps being said about our gifted program at Murata. And that is that our gifted teachers are somehow isolated. Okay. I've met with the gifted teachers at Murata. They are not isolated. They work together as gifted. as gifted teachers, like the second and third grade teachers pair up or the fourth and fifth do a project together, but they also work collaboratively within their grade level. So all the second grade teachers, whether gifted or not gifted, they work together. Same with the third grade teachers, the fourth, and so on. And then they also collaborate with their counterparts at Monta Vista. Okay, so I just need to put that out there. They want

131me to let you know that they love their jobs, they love teaching at Murata, and they love their program. Okay. The next thing, the main thing that I came to talk about. So a lot of us are starting to get advertising from neighboring districts, which I'm going to share with you. This is from Chandler and also from Mesa. They are advertising school choice fairs. So they are advertising events where all parents can come to one location and learn about all the different schools in their district and also their choice programs. And I'm wondering. Why aren't we doing that? Okay. So I know that, I know we've done a lot to like trim the budget, but we're, we can do so much more with the marketing. Okay. Eight years ago, when my oldest son was four

132years old, I remember coming to a school choice fair at this district office. And so we used to do it. And we need to bring that back because people need to know, they need to be able to come to one location to see everything at one time and see what the options are. And, you know, for example, Pueblo Middle School. Great band program, gate program, leader in me, web leader programs. All these things are awesome and very marketable, but the district's got to do it. The district has to help us market it. The individual schools don't have time to do that much marketing. The district has to do it. Thank you, Ms. Cousy. Our next speaker is Stephanie Ingersoll, who will be followed by Jason Barrett. Good evening, Governing Board and Superintendency. My name is

133Stephanie Ingersoll, and I'm so proud to be here tonight to speak on behalf of the Kyrene Override election. An override funds people and programs. Let me share a few special stories about the people and programs in Kyrene and what they've done for my students. From early entrance kindergarten to online kindergarten during a global pandemic, Kyrene staff supported my family every step of the way through two vastly different experiences for my boys. Through welcoming events like Lunch on the Lawn and Turkey Trots that teach students fitness and fun, Kyrene staffs schools into more than just classrooms. They create communities. From athletics to fine arts, Kyrene programs are second to none. My oldest discovered wrestling, and Kyrene is now on track to be a varsity wrestler at DV. My youngest jams with his music teacher, talking about

134his favorite rock bands, Metallica, by the way. People and programs, that is what the override is all about. It's important to remember that this override is not a new task. It's been in place since 1983 and funds the equivalent of 200 teaching positions. This override is truly vital for keeping Kyrene strong for our community, teachers, and staff. So here's my call to action to everyone out there and everyone listening. When you get home, open your ballot, vote yes, and mail it back. Then tell everyone you know in the Kyrene boundaries to do the same. As you heard today, it is the last day to turn in your ballot to ensure it's counted for November 4th. If you miss the deadline, don't worry. There are ballot drop-off locations. There's one at Chandler City Hall and Pecos

135Community Center. And to all the parents and community members here tonight, if you have an override yard sign or these little guys, display them loud and proud near your schools during drop-off and pick-up leading up to Election Day. Sorry, I'm stumbling over my words. Finally, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has volunteered your time and energy, KEA staff, PTOs, and community members to spread the word about the override. I'm immensely grateful for all of you, and we couldn't cross this finish line without your dedication, passion, and belief in the Kyrene's future. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Singersvall. Our next speaker is Jason Barrett, who will be followed by Paul Decker. Hi. So I'm talking a little bit more about the community here. We had our trunk or treat at Mariposa

136in conjunction with our book fair. And shout out to my wife, who ran the book fair the last two times, and it's exceeded expectations. So to her. What's fascinating about that, and it kind of led me to a story. I ran into Principal Fallgetter and another parent. And I kind of told them a story about, as I said last time, my dream was to be able to walk my daughter to school, which is why I chose to move into Warner Ranch and be a part of the Mariposa community. And one night before my daughter was born, we hear this music because the windows are open and, you know, it's fall. And I, at the time, a little less domesticated than I am now, was like, hey, who's having a party that we're not invited to?

137So I got my wife, we started walking around, and we're just a couple blocks from the school, and walked up to what was our fall festival. And it was such a special moment for my wife and I to walk around. We had not had our daughter quite yet, but to see what was going on at this school and the community. And after I told that story to Principal Fahlgetter and a parent, they said, hey, you know, you're going to speak again. That would be a really cool story to tell them because Warner Ranch and Mariposa is a community within a community. And it is more than wonderful to walk up every day and see parents that are sitting in this room that I want to go watch their kids play football or I want to

138be a part of what they're doing because they want to be a part of what we're doing. Mariposa is more than just the data. Because we've presented that data to you. We've presented everything we can present. I think much of these speeches have probably become immensely repetitive and redundant to you all. I'm happy to stand here and provide the data and all the things necessary that we have. But more importantly, I'm here to talk about the community of Mariposa and Warner Ranch. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Barrett. Our next speaker is Paul Decker, who will be followed by Shelby Gordon. Hi. Thanks for having me. So we just talked about data, right? I'm the data guy. I'm one of the nerds in Mariposa. So my boy is in second grade there, and

139we have an incoming kindergartner. I've spent many hours reviewing Kyrene's own information, the data, long-range planning documents, the criteria published on the site we just mentioned earlier. Increasing utilization, maintaining balance across the district, minimizing boundary changes, advancing equity, and reducing travel for families. When you apply these priorities together holistically, as the criteria described in your proposal, it already meets every one of them. We operate at 75% utilization right inside your own... target 70 to 85 percent for efficiency. One of the few East Region schools to meet that mark, whilst the average sits at 57 percent. 66 percent of our students live in boundary, the highest neighborhood enrollment. I think we've heard that already. The families aren't transferring out. They're choosing to stay. Academically, we already perform above the Arizona State average in every tested subject,

140math, reading, science. Demographically, we're one of the most balanced schools. I was surprised to see, not surprised, but it was great to see it on paper. No single group above 35% and four in ten students economically disadvantaged. That's equity in practice, not just on paper. As Kyrene's Computer Science Academy, Mariposa is both a choice school and a true neighborhood anchor, achieving the kind of balance and inclusion that other programs strive to build. Choice schools, I also found, as a group, are among the districts most efficiently used, the top third in utilization, yet Mariposa is the only choice school recommendation for closure. If the goal is to right-size while preserving excellence, equity, and efficiency, that decision moves in the wrong direction. I didn't cherry-pick numbers. I compared every single campus using the lens the district itself

141defined. And when you look through that lens, Mariposa is an exception to the plan. It's the example of it. Please make decisions that recognize success when you see it. Keep Mariposa open. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Decker. Our next speaker is Shelby Gordon, who will be followed by Michelle Donati-Graymon. All right. Good evening, board members and superintendent. I'm here tonight as a hiring community member and to oppose the proposed closure of Mariposa. When we began looking, me and my husband as we, when we began looking for houses last year to buy, aside from budget, the schools that we were going to send our young daughters to was our top priority. And we did the research and that research did lead us to Mariposa. Sorry. Mariposa is an A-plus school, and it's gotten that award several times.

142In a few of these meetings that I've attended, awards and these enrollments seems, it has been pointed out that it hasn't been the main consideration when considering which schools to close. That doesn't make a ton of sense to me because those are what is important to prospective parents. That's what's important to me and my family. So when we're looking at what has to be done, public schools are already competing with the voucher program. We need to stay competitive and keep our schools that are going to attract those prospective families to the district. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Gordon. Our next speaker is Michelle Donati-Greeman, who will be followed by Katie Burkell. Good evening. Our world is changing at an unprecedented pace, and our public schools hold the fundamental responsibility to evolve with

143it. I'm here to speak on behalf of Kyrene DeLasimoneides, not as a school on the chopping block, but as a crucible of innovation that Kyrene desperately needs. Program-based learning that adequately resourced and strategically executed is the difference between students who can simply follow instructions and students who are adaptable learners, self-advocates, community contributors, and critical thinkers. You don't need to look far to see the effectiveness of this model. Across the I-10 stands a successful public charter school utilizing this framework, and their waiting list is a testament to its value. They hold a lottery for admission because families are demanding this education. This model works, and families want it. Closing Menides is a strategic error. It will only serve to push kindred families to its competitors. Instead, it should be refined, bolstered, and resourced so that it

144can reach its full transformative potential. I implore you, don't choose elimination of Menendez. Choose investment. Choose innovation. Choose the future. Closing the district's only program-based learning would be a devastating step backward for Kyrene. Keep Menendez open and give it the support and resources it has earned and deserves. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nani Greenman. Our next speaker is Keri Burkell. We'll be followed by Kereen Inouye. Hi, thank you all so much for letting us continue to come and talk to you. It's such a privilege to be able to be in the room with you all and hear what considerations you all are thinking about as you make this really difficult decision. So as I mentioned, it's a privilege to be here. There are a lot of people who can't be here, and I think that's...

145come up in many conversations. I did start my first ever change.org petition in support of all this is going on for Mariposa in particular, and we're just shy of 1,500 signatures. But I wanted to just share quickly a few of the comments because people... also made comments on these sites. And so I just wanted to share so that some of the folks who can't be here could be in the room. So just to start, as a retired teacher and proud grandparent of three Mariposa students, I know firsthand how hard it is to build a strong school culture. It takes years of trust, collaboration, consistency between teachers, students, and families. Once a school has created that culture of excellence, you protect it at all costs. Closing an A-plus school like Mariposa would undo decades of hard

146work, and the students would be the ones to pay the price. Instead of dismantling what works, we should strengthen and expand so more children can benefit. I'm running out of time, so I'm just going to read one more. The Warner Ranch neighborhood feels like a small town with... within the broader Tempe area. I've rarely seen so many folks return to their childhood neighborhood to plant down their own family's roots. Mariposa is the anchor of this community and a key reason that families stay and move back, mine included. So I just wanted to share these things. There are plenty more that I could share as well. And actually, thank you, member Satru, for commenting on the petition. But just to show that, you know, a school is more than just a building and the culture can't

147just be. picked up and changed to another state. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Burkell. Our next speaker is Karine Inouye, who will be followed by Mark Wolf. Okay. So before I begin, I have to redo my speech. I just want to address the closing comments made by our leader. She said decisions are being made solely based on 25... assets, dots on a map for the district-wide only, right? And we're not considering what schools bring or any kind of that analysis, which is right or wrong. I'll say it's wrong. So making a, it's a massive miss exactly why families keep looking at choice schools. Like it's just, it's wild. But making a permanent decision based on dots and building locations and not just wrong, it's dangerously incomplete. Are you seriously going to say that the

148future of our students and our community comes down to some dots and square footage? But I do believe the five of you who are the decision makers do care about the stories. And you guys do care about our communities. You do care about public education and what we're up against right now. Which is why I didn't walk out and why these stories continue to keep coming here. So I'm going to go as fast as I can now. So even as we grow the new housing developments, young families, moving our boundaries, we're being asked to defend Mariposa's very existence. And I will say to you. that did you even consider that just facilities when you brought Norte back online. But the trickle-down decisions that followed were neither consistent nor thoughtful. Meanwhile, other schools are promising excellence

149and clear vision, and they're going to continue to win unless we start looking at schools like Mariposa with the same seriousness. So I ask, are we really using the same data points consistently? I don't know. Yes, no, sometimes, maybe. It's a different story every time I come up here, and I feel like it's an effort to stop us from keep coming. And then some of you guys say you still want us to keep coming. It's very confusing. It's very confusing at this point. We're up against choice school. Just recently, the Washington Post just posted public charter schools promise excellence. And in public school systems right now, that's what we're up against. And when you close a school like Mariposa and don't take these kind of things into consideration, it's dangerous for our students. So that's

150what we should be considering. And that's it. I'm out of time. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Inouye. Our next speaker is Mark Wolf. We'll be followed by Kelsey Wolf-Dunne. My family moved from Atlanta into Festiva Tempe, which is in Mariposa's boundary, in 2007 for the single reason that we plan to send our then three-year-old to Mariposa. Many other Mariposa parents have shared similar stories in their public comments. I'd like to address comments Member Davis has made at the beginning of several hearings, specifically that part of the reason for declining enrollment It's because the cost of living in the district is too high and families with young children cannot afford to move into the district. This is not true within the boundaries of Mariposa. Mariposa has a utilization rate of 75%, the highest in the district.

151If we can increase the utilization rate of every school in the district to 75%, the budget shortfall would be averted with funds to spare. The hearings would be canceled. If it's not fiscally responsible to keep schools at 40% to 50%... capacity. It is also not fiscally responsible to close a school at 75% capacity. Mariposa also has among the highest number of in-boundary students at 66%. Those are families that moved into Mariposa's boundaries because they also want to send their kids to Mariposa. The PTO has identified families planning to send their kids to Mariposa. The count was close to 30 kids and increasing last time I checked. And let's not forget the Alcamal coach who lives in Warner Ranch and passes prospective Mariposa students every day during his daily walks. If Mariposa closes, less families will

152move into the district. That is less students for both elementary and middle school. To address declining enrollment, we must keep Mariposa open to attract families into the district. To see a thriving school and community, come to our neighborhood event this Saturday and observe the start of school for yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Our next speaker is Kelsey Wolf-Danae, who will be followed by Jeremiah Gutierrez-Jensen. Good evening, governing board members, superintendents. It was perfect timing with Mark to be able to talk about our invitation for you all to come and see our community that you've heard about so much over the past two months. So we have our... First Bell is at 725. I know you all, in addition to being a volunteer, have nine to five jobs. So we do invite you to

153come and see the thriving acting community, the kids walking and biking to school. So that's our open invitation for you to come at a convenient time for your schedules. We also have the Gay Neighborhood Block Party coming up this Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. at our neighboring city of Tempe Park, Mary Moses Green. So we hope that you all will take the opportunity. to come and visit. We have a booth there and we'll have lots of family members that can be able to talk about our community and how it can really help to save Kyrene. I wanted to also come up in support of the M&O override, as Stephanie and some other people talked about. As it was shared, this is the last day to drop off your ballot. So if you happen to

154have it sitting there on your kitchen table, it's not too late. If you go to elections.maricopa.gov, you can see a map of locations. There's one at the Pecos Community Center, one at the Tempe Schools near Baseline and Clintock. Your voice matters, and we appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wolf-Tanay. Our next speaker is Jeremiah Gutierrez-Jensen. Hi, I am a Kyrene kid. I went to Paloma, Murata, and Pueblo. I know what it means to be a member of this community, and I am proud that my sons will have the opportunity to have the same educational opportunities I did. My eldest son is in first grade at Manitas, and I was excited that my youngest would join me in kindergarten next year here. To hear that the heel turn changed to close Manitas, where my son

155has thrived at, was devastating. My son is an IEP. We chose Manitas and chose to drive him every day because of how wonderful the staff and teachers are. We also use full advantage of the late bell schedule to our full advantage to take my son to his therapies that he requires three times per week without missing one minute of class time. Menides matters because of how wonderful the studio model is for how my son learns. He gets tons of support from his brilliant teachers who are always willing to motivate him in innovative ways. Closing Menides and losing this is a huge loss for him, for us, and for the Kyrene community. Ignoring the objective data and recommendations to keep Menides open is shocking. Our school has given my son so much opportunity to learn and

156grow and is a unique place within Kareem. And to see it gone will have a significant negative impact on the district we all love so much. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez-Jensen. That does conclude all of our in-person public comments for this evening. We thank everybody for their feedback and comments. We're going to take a quick recess and we're going to start back up with item 7.1 after the break. All right, we're going to reconvene our meeting. We'll reconvene in our meeting at 7.36 p.m. Item 7.1 is the consent agenda. Any changes to tonight's consent agenda? Seeing none, would someone like to make a motion to approve? Motion to approve consent agenda. I have a motion by Vice President Nelson. Is there a second? Second. Second by Member Satri. All those in favor, please say aye.

157Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes 5-0. Item 8.1 is an update and presentation from Talent Management. I'll invite our Assistant Superintendent, Ms. Lisa Gibson, up to the podium. I love seeing Packer jerseys. Sorry, had to do it. Good evening, President Walsh, Superintendent Tanez, members of the governing board. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present tonight. I am here to provide you with our annual update on two key areas, which include evaluation ratings and teacher retention. These topics are essential to our ongoing efforts to ensure high quality teaching and learning environments for our students. The data shared tonight highlights how our teachers and school leaders are performing based on established evaluation criteria as well as trends in retaining teachers in our district. Both of these areas are crucial as they directly impact student success.

158Before I begin the presentation tonight, I would really like to take a moment to thank Dr. Suzie Ostmeyer and Dr. Rebecca Bolnick for assisting with the data and the creation of the data slides. I greatly appreciate their support in collecting and analyzing this data from me and the talent management team. In accordance with ARS 15-203, today's presentation fulfills our statutory obligation to present and discuss performance classifications of our principals and teachers. This statute requires that the governing board at least once a year review and discuss this data in a public meeting. The purpose behind this requirement is to ensure transparency and accountability in how we evaluate the performance of our educators and school leaders. By sharing these performance classifications publicly, we provide insight into the effectiveness of our evaluation processes and demonstrate our commitment to

159upholding high standards in our district. This presentation is an opportunity not only to meet that obligation, but also to reflect on the trends and progress in teacher and principal performance, as well as retention efforts. During the school year, teachers receive walkthrough observations, formal observations, and in the spring, a final evaluation. The final evaluation is a cycle of data gathering from at least one observation, walkthroughs, and at least one pre-conference and one post-conference meeting. The final evaluation score is a combined score of a teacher's individual performance score and their school-wide data score, which is known as the academic progress score. The individual performance score accounts for 80% of a teacher's final evaluation, and the academic practice score, which is school-wide data from state assessments, accounts for 20% of their final evaluation score. The combined scores of

160the individual performance score and the academic practice score creates the final evaluation rating. The final classification ratings or state ratings is what is displayed on the left side of the slide. The state ratings are highly effective, effective, developing, and ineffective. For the 24-25 school year, 332 teachers received a rating of highly effective. 424 teachers received a rating of effective, and one teacher received a rating of developing. We did have some teachers on a performance improvement plan last year, and it is highly likely that anyone on a performance improvement plan corrected their inadequacies or resigned prior to receiving their final evaluation. The principal evaluation tool has the same state classifications as a certified employee group, but their evaluation is focused on four school leadership areas. The four areas a principal is rated on include data-driven decisions,

161curriculum and instruction, collaboration and feedback, and school climate. Each area holds a different weight with curriculum and instruction at the highest rate of 50%. Principals meet with their direct supervisor on a regular basis to discuss their 90-day plan and the four areas identified on their evaluation tool. At the end of the school year, principals receive a final evaluation score based on progress of goals from the entire school year. In the 2024-25 school year, eight principals had a rating of highly effective and 17 had a rating of effective. Over the next few slides, I will address teacher retention and how many teachers returned to Kyrene in the 2025-26 school year. In the 24-25 school year, we had 823 teachers who worked in Kyrene. This slide identifies the types of contracts held by teachers. Eight teachers were

162categorized as pro-certified employees, and this was a term that identifies retired teachers who are employed by a vendor but teaching in a Kyrene school. 66 teachers had a one-year only contract, which is a type of contract issued to identify teachers who work less than half of the school year and receive a contract or begin a new assignment in January, are in a unique position, for example, a specialized teacher at a rise-up school, and teachers working a .5 or less contract. 749 teachers held a continuing contract. This contract holds an expectation that employment will continue the next year or the following year. So the question is, what percent of the teachers with a continuing contract return to Kyrene for the 24-25 school year? To measure this, we use the first day of school as our measuring

163point. Out of the 749 teachers who had continuing contracts in the 24-25 school year, 660 returned for this academic year, which is 88%. This high retention rate brings significant benefits to the Kyrene community. Experienced teachers bring continuity, instructional knowledge, and a deep understanding of students' academic and social-emotional needs. For the small percent of the teachers who did not return, we disaggregated the reasons they did not return between retirement, resignation, and request for release from contract, which you can see on this chart. Out of the 749 teachers, 63 resigned from the district with the top three reasons for leaving being family obligations, career changes, and job-related stress. These factors reflect the personal and professional challenges that educators often face. Family responsibilities can sometimes require relocation, while career transitions may involve opportunities outside of education. Additionally, stress

164on the job, which can stem from a variety of reasons, but it can play a significant role in a teacher's decision to leave the profession. Understanding these reasons helps a district better support staff well-being and retention, ensuring they maintain a healthy and productive teaching environment. The remaining responses were cited by Lesson 5 teachers and included child care reasons, going back to school, commute, or medical reasons. Responses in these categories were Lesson 5 and are not illustrated for privacy reasons. Over the past few years, we have seen stability in teacher retention rates. In 2023, 84% of our teachers returned to the school district, followed by an increase in 87% in 2024 and reaching 88% in 2025. In 2026, we maintained at 88%. This trend reflects our district's commitment to creating a supportive and engaging work environment

165for teachers, providing professional development, necessary resources, and focusing on teacher well-being, we are ensuring that our teachers not only choose to stay in Kylene, but thrive in Kylene. Teacher retention is not about just keeping educators in classrooms. It's about sustaining the quality, consistency, and stability of our education system. When experienced teachers stay, student outcomes improve, school culture strengthens, and communities excel. Investing in teacher retention means investing in the future of education. And with that, I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Ms. Gibson. Any questions or comments? Member Collins. Vice President Nelson. Okay. You were next. One, really appreciate this. I know we get this every year, but I do want to call out the relatively stable rate of teacher. teachers returning to contract, like 88% is a really, it's a

166really positive improvement. I also really appreciate the disaggregation around the reasons for resignation. I know that's something we ask about quite a bit, especially, you know, we know there's a teacher shortage. And so really understanding the needs of our teachers is really important. I think a lot of times. We obviously are very focused at what is good for kids. And I'm always like this presentation is always a nice reminder as far as as a district. We are also employers and responsible for making a safe and supportive work environment for our staff. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Member Collins. All right. First, I want to echo what Board Member Nelson, Vice President Nelson said about showing the data as to what leads teachers to resign. That's great because everybody does it, but they don't

167provide that information. But being a teacher who go through evaluation processes, one question is two questions. How many observations are each teacher allotted? Is it based on years of services? Is that how you guys do it in your district or is it a different process? So what we do have is in our teacher evaluation and growth system handbook is kind of a guide. And so. The guide is one walkthrough observation per quarter. And then for a teacher that is a T-3 teacher or probationary teacher, it's two formal observations during the school year. And for a T-3 teacher or TANU teacher, it is one formal observation during the school year, evaluation, final evaluation at the end of the school year. Okay. So that's similar to what we do too. Okay. And for the teachers on the

168improvement plan, what... What does that process look like for them? Like, how are they guided through that process if they're placed on an improvement plan? So we look at more as like a coaching plan. And so there is a form that, you know, a supervisor fills out and identifies the inadequacies and then identifies ways to help correct inadequacies. You know, coaching can look so many different ways where we have members of our professional growth and development team who can support. It could be administrator supports, but they have 45 instructional days to correct their inadequacies. Thank you. Member Davis. I think Member Sacre has it. Oh, Member Sacre. Thank you. Just a real quick question. How, you may have mentioned this, but how do our metrics, our outcomes compare with other districts? Are we competitive with

169our retention rates? Are we, are you able to look at that data? That's a great question. I really don't have the data from other school districts on how their retention rates are, but I can certainly find that information and bring that back to you. Yeah, I'm just curious how we're doing in our district as far as that's concerned. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Yes, I second. I would like that information also if you can find it, when you find it. I have a question about supervision, just to understand the process. Who is responsible for supervising teachers? Who evaluates teachers and who evaluates supervisors, administrators? So starting with school-based employees, so that would be certified teachers and ESP staff. And so it's a qualified evaluator, so they have to be a governing board-approved qualified evaluator. And

170it typically is the principal, assistant principal. It could also be an academic behavior support coach who could also do an evaluation. So it has to be somebody that is a qualified evaluator governing. governing board approved. As far as principals who evaluates principals, that would be school effectiveness team. So the school effectiveness team, Dr. Cupp and Kelly Brenner are the evaluators for principals. Thank you. No comments or no questions from me. I will commend you on the high retention rate, relatively speaking. It's not an easy job. to be a teacher, especially in the state of Arizona. And Vice President Nelson mentioned the teacher shortage. As she knows, as we know, there's plenty of people in Arizona with teaching certificates. But we're seeing those people leave the profession. Because in the state of Arizona, our legislature does

171not respect teachers, it doesn't pay them what they're worth, and it doesn't treat them like the professionals they are. And until that changes, we are going to continue to have an uphill battle in attracting teachers out of college and retaining the amazing individuals we have. So the fact that in all of that, you're still able to keep the retention amounts that you are is a testament to you, to the Kyrene Education Association, to a testament to our school leaders, to everybody who makes this community what it is. So thank you for that. And thank you to all of our Kyrene educators. Thank you. I mean, you can have your GED now. Start your program. That's right. Our next item on the agenda is a Curriculum Council board representation. So, board members, you know this is

172an item that was suggested for future consideration by Member Davis. We have Dr. Lane here who can provide some information to the board on how the Curriculum Council is currently comprised and its function. And then we can have a conversation about if the board wants to have representation on that. So, I will turn it over to Dr. Lane to provide background. Sure. So the Curriculum Council is a collaborative committee. It is comprised of teachers, school and district leaders, and parents slash community members. A couple of them serve multiple roles in our community, either a state legislature, at our local university, etc. So it is a team of about 16 people. And we review supplemental curriculum materials. If there is a middle school course proposal for an elective, requests for curriculum or library book reconsideration, or

173requests to pilot certain curriculum materials. So our team meets this year. It's about once per quarter. We do operate under Arizona's open meeting law. And that is really to ensure transparency and anyone in the public is welcome to attend. But that also, the process really helps us to ensure that our curriculum remains high quality, it's equitable, and it's aligned with our goals in the district. Dr. Lane, can you just clarify, even though, yes, we follow open meeting law, but we do not live stream the curriculum. We do not. We post our minutes. Yeah, we post our agenda 24 hours in advance and we post our minutes after the meeting. Yes. Yeah. No, we do not live stream. That is true. But if somebody wanted to come because they could come and sit in the audience.

174So we can ask questions about the Curriculum Council if there's any thoughts on that. But the threshold question is, does the board wish to have somebody serve on that committee? And if so, my understanding would be they do so in a non-voting capacity because their vote would be saved up for here on the board. But they could participate and attend all those committee meetings. If the board does want to have somebody on that committee, the second question would be who that person is. But before we get to that second question, any thoughts or questions on whether or not to have board representation on the committee? Have we ever had board representation in the past years? Not that I recall in the years that I've been here. We started the curriculum council actually started. I may

175not get the exact year right. I came in 1516. I think it started in 1718 based on the curriculum audit that had come out. It was a recommendation to form a curriculum council. It wasn't always a board. The council legislation changed, and I'm kind of looking at you, Mr. Allel. If you recall, when legislation came in that the curriculum councils were recommended, it's been within the last... Two to three years, I would say, that legislation came out about the curriculum. Councils really should follow open meeting law and be board-approved committees. So we shifted that around the time that new legislation came out. But the board has never recommended to have representation on the committee. We do do share-outs during either... curriculum adoption, sometimes it comes out, but not all the supplemental, like just approving a

176class may not come to a budget discussion for the board, but some of the supplemental curriculum may, if it's big enough that it requires either an RFP or we purchase in it, you usually will see it in a consent item. So it's not maybe a standalone supplemental if we have to purchase something. But some of the decisions are not about purchasing per se. They're about whether or not it's an approved book that can be read. If somebody questions one of the library materials, say, or a book that's being read in a class, the committee will read the whole book, have a discussion about it, make a decision whether or not this should be approved or not approved to stay in the library. be read as a read aloud, maybe in a class or as a

177book study. We also have at the middle school a young adult section. So sometimes the decision is to place that book in a young adult section, which requires parent permission for students to check out. A question, and then I'll follow up with a comment. Looking at the board committees, we have the Kyrene Curriculum Council, but we also have the Curriculum Adoption Committee. Are we listed as board committees on our website? Are we talking about one member for both of those? Or are we talking just about the Kyrene Curriculum Council? The curriculum adoption committee is based on when we're, like, for example, when it's time to renew our science curriculum or our math curriculum. Have we had board representation there, Dr. Lane? We have not. That's also new. But it is, like you were saying, Superintendent

178Tenya, is on an as-needed basis. For example, last year when we did... Actually, it might have been two. I think it was science. Middle school science. Yes, elementary science and middle school SEL. That we brought a team of teachers and leaders together for that committee based on their expertise. So that is a committee that changes based on the material that we would be looking to adopt. And that will come to the board for adoption for sure. So the Curriculum Council. may or may not decisions out of there come to the board. If there's a financial component to it, they do. So we were, this item was agendized for just the council. If we want to have a further discussion about the curriculum. adoption committees, we could bring that back to it unless you want to,

179you know, recommend. I think it might be appropriate just because in looking, you know, at the board committees, we, you know, we have KEBT, we have the long range planning committee, and we've had board representation on those. And so in my mind, it makes sense to continue as just a matter of practice for. standardization to always have some type of board representation with the understanding that, yes, we cannot vote on these things. But I know we haven't agendized the other. So is it possible in a different meeting to then talk about the Kyrene Curriculum Adoption Committee? I don't want to be. Mr. Lowe, I'm looking at Mr. Lowe. Can we combine those today or do we need to bring those as a separate item since they're two separate committees? I'm OK combining them because we're

180talking about. Board committees. Okay. Okay. And I mean, I'm open to discussion with the rest of the board. People might feel differently than I do. I just feel as though if we are asking teachers and staff and others to do work ultimately on our behalf to vote, we should really, someone from this, someone sitting up here should also be there participating in that work to the extent legally allowed. Well, and what we could do, because technically when it's a board committee, the board approves the committee members in a meeting, right? Like we brought the long range plan committee members to you. What you could do is identify somebody to serve on the curriculum council, which is a regularly occurring meeting. And then we bring that whole membership back in the next meeting. So the board

181could recommend a board member. We could bring the whole list of people back. The board could approve that because I don't know that that list ever was approved or how often it changes, Dr. Lane. But for the curriculum adoption committees, we could do that on a curriculum adoption cycle, if you will. So knowing, let's just say next adoption is ELA. I don't even know if that's true. So please don't quote me on that. I'm just using that as an example. If there was an ELA adoption next month and it was middle school ELA, we could come and say, we're going to have this adoption. Would the board like to recommend somebody to serve on that committee? Because again, you could have multiple curriculum adoption committees in one year and you may not want the same

182member the whole time. So we could bring it that one on a case by case when we actually do the big adoptions. But in that case. I think in both cases, Mr. O'Leal, I'm kind of leaning into you on this one, too. The board member should not vote, but definitely on the curriculum adoption committee, because you wouldn't want to vote on that committee and then turn around. You wouldn't be able to vote in the board. Correct. Correct. I would say on either committee, the board member should not vote if there's consensus building. And I think that's consistent with the work. Member Davis can talk about what happens in KEBT. It was definitely the plague. the role we inhabited on the Long Range Planning Committee. And so again, for consistency's sake. KBT might be different. Mr.

183Herman, is our board representative a voting member on KBT? I think they actually are, but I think that's driven by the... representation, how that's set up. So that is the one committee. It's similar to the committee we dissolved a few years ago that we used to share with Tempe Union on the retirement. The one thing that's nice about having representation from the board, so I also think, you know, we think it's a great idea, is especially now that we've included the board member updates in our board agenda as a standing item, it gives the rest of the board a chance to hear an update of what's happening in these meetings. Now, Dr. Lane always provides all the board a written explanation after each curriculum council meeting, but it's nice to have a public acknowledgement of

184here's what's occurred in those meetings. So it does give a board member a chance to give the rest of the board members an update. So I would like to speak to my interest in serving on the council. And it comes directly from my educational experience. I'm really interested in curriculum, and I would like the opportunity to interact with other educators. I still consider myself an educator, and we have other educators here of all kinds. But curriculum development is something that I've worked in, and I think it would be very helpful. not just for me, but I think the board to have a direct insight into the kind of processes that we go through and the stuff, for lack of a better noun, that is considered and how it is. taken very seriously and worked on

185for long periods of time and lots of things are taken into consideration. I think it would be great for the community to have an insight into that. And I think through the board is the best way to do it. So that's why I brought it up and I'd like to do it. If other people are interested, that would be great too. I love the idea of having a representation on the council. So that'd be great. Dr. Lane, did you mention when the council meets typically? We meet quarterly. During the day, after hours? No, after school. Usually we start at 4 or 4.30. 4.30 because we have some late start schools represented with teachers. Anyone else interested? All right, hearing none, I'll make a motion to create a board seat on the curriculum. Council and that

186member Davis initially fill that seat is there a second to the motion second second by Vice President Nelson all those in favor please say aye aye Opposed motion passes 5-0 Thank You member Davis All right item 9.1 is board committee reports remember Davis I know you want to report out on the Kyrene employee benefit trust committee Yes, I do. Thank you. And I'd like to say before I read this statement that wonderful Deb Spergen helped me with again, because she's so good at it. I think that something that I was really impressed with with our last meeting was the decision to include and to expand the behavioral health component of our insurance plan. I think that it's a recognition of the kind of stress and on-the-job stress and difficulties that the present day is presenting

187to our staff. And apparently, as you'll hear in my prepared statement here, it's being utilized very appropriately and well and falls within a very good amount of... caring that's expressed through our special benefits that we provide to our employees. As the appointed governing board member for the Kyrene Employee Benefit Trust, KEBT, for this school year, I attended their meeting on October 21st, 2025. KEBT reviews the financial status of the trust at each meeting by reviewing financial and claims reports prepared by outside consultants. I'm pleased to report that the trust fund balance remains strong. through the start of the school year and claims are within the budgeted amounts. KEBT is currently analyzing requests for proposals, RFPs, one for dental plans and one for accidental injury or critical illness benefits. Decisions for these benefits will be considered

188by KEBT in December of this year. If any new vendors are selected, the changes would be implemented July 1, 2026. Discussion was had about our LIRA and planned behavioral health benefits. Employees and dependents are utilizing these benefits, and there is a plan to offer resources to employees in the form of webinars. Webinars? Webinars? Thank you. This school year for additional supportive care. KEBT's next meeting will be on December 2nd, 2025. Thank you. Thank you, Member Davis. Appreciate the update. All right. Item 7.1 is items for future consideration. Board members wish to list items for future consideration. Seeing none, item 11.1, meeting dates. Our next regular meeting is scheduled for November 18th, 2025. In the meantime, we have several public hearings, including one tomorrow at Centennial Middle School. Item 12.1 is adjournment. Would someone like to

189make a motion to adjourn the meeting? Motion to adjourn. A motion by Vice President Nelson. Is there a second? Second. Second by Member Satri. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. We're adjourned at 8.08 p.m. Have a good night. Happy Halloween.